


Do Or Do Not, There Is No Try: AKA If You're Gonna Write Poe/Rey Porn, Write 25k

by aimmyarrowshigh, nichestars



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: 5 Times, Cunnilingus, Established Relationship, F/M, First Time, Meet the Family, Outdoor Sex, Public Sex, Sex in Space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 09:34:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6369649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimmyarrowshigh/pseuds/aimmyarrowshigh, https://archiveofourown.org/users/nichestars/pseuds/nichestars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Poe kisses the side of her knee, lets his teeth edge against the shadow of the soft underside that makes Rey's toes curl, her thigh tense up ticklishly. "You wanna go again?" She's come twice on his tongue and fingers tonight, which is how he ended up halfway down the mattress, stroking her calf, eyes half-closed and a little sleepy.</i><br/> ----</p><p>Or, the one that is A 5x Fic Of Roughly A Year In The Sex Life Of Poe and Rey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do Or Do Not, There Is No Try: AKA If You're Gonna Write Poe/Rey Porn, Write 25k

**001.**

Rey's fingers taste like the butter of the bang-corn when she tries to feed him a handful and his lips catch on her calluses instead. Poe can't help that he lets the pieces of their holofilm snack fall away from his mouth into her lap, when he can suck her index finger against his tongue instead. Rey laughs and pulls it free with a slight wet sound, picks the corn out of the folds of her tunic and stuffs them in her own mouth. Poe licks his lips to taste butter and the engine grease that Rey can never quite wash off.

He's already seen this holo six times. Most of the people in the room have watched it at least once, he thinks, because it's old–made back in Coruscant during the Republic–but it's Jessika's favorite, and it was her turn to choose the Rest Day activity. The rain outside ruled out limmie, so here everyone is, piled into the Rec Room.

"I haven't seen this one," Rey says, hushed against his ear. She's squirming a little. It always takes her a few minutes to decide how she'll be most comfortable, twisting and kneading like a kitten until she settles.

Poe pulls her in closer on his lap, laughing softly through his nose. "The hero saves the day at the end."

"No way." Slouching against his chest, she plays with the loose flap of a pocket, crams another handful of popped grains into her mouth.

Poe nods. "Swoops in at the last second in his X-wing. Gets the girl. It's the story of my life, really."

Rey shakes her head and turns back to the screen, her head resting against his neck as she finally relaxes. Poe adjusts the soft blanket they'd dragged from the Falcon so that they're completely nestled under it, warm like fluffkens in their den.

"He looks nothing like you," she points out, when they've gotten far enough into the holo that the hero, and his lack of any resemblance to Poe, is obvious. "And his ship is way cooler, look at the capacitors on the rear, that's–"

"Hey," Poe nudges her ribs firmly. "Have some respect for my first lady, please."

Rey tips her head just enough to catch a light kiss at the curve of his jaw. "And anyway, Beebee-Ate is much cuter than his droid."

Poe huffs in agreement, then has to brush her hair out of his mouth. She's started experimenting with different ways to wear it, and he likes all of them, but today's pulled back, looping braids that come undone easily are a recent favorite.

"Yeah, I'll give you that. Beebee would hate being compared to that old model."

In the blue light of the holo, the pilot's heroine shrieks and falls when a Stormtrooper's immobilizer beam hits her during a low-speed foot chase. 

Rey snorts. "I think I hate that you're comparing me to that junky old model, too."

"Never," Poe says. "You're much smarter. And stronger. And more beautiful."

"Mmm." Rey presses her smile to his neck, her teeth finding their marks from the night before. She shifts in his lap again, more purposeful, exaggerated this time. "I'm guessing this holo doesn't have any sex in it," she says, hushed. "Does it?"

"No," Poe says. "Most don't. At least not the kind that people'd watch in a group like this."

He does not mention that time with all the Corellian whisky and the Utapau'ian absinthe and Blue Squadron. That was an odd night, from the bits he does remember. Sullustans look different down below than he would have guessed.

Rey shrugs dismissively. "Hmm."

Poe hums against her ear and spares a quick glance around the room. Jessika is, as usual, absorbed in the action, while Snap looks like he's half-asleep, tilted back in his chair. 

Beneath their blanket, Poe slips his hand beneath the soft material of Rey's tunic so that he can touch the hot, bare skin of her belly.

Rey doesn't move, except to turn her face further into Poe's neck, pressing her nose against his pulse and exhaling warmly. "Poe?"

He draws his thumb in a light circle around her navel. "Mm-hmm?"

"Could you?" Rey asks, and she bites her lip.

"Just keep watching the holo," Poe whispers. "I'll take care of you."

He looks around the room again as his fingertips find the gathered waistband of her pants–the smallest size they could find her, and she still has to cinch them up over her hips. Poe likes her best in his old sleeping pants, when she doesn't even attempt to keep the waistband up. 

A flying sequence is playing now, and usually Poe would be watching this part even if he hadn't been paying attention to the rest, but tonight there are higher callings. Rey is tilting her hips up, stomach tensing under the flat of his palm, her breathing shallow against his jaw.

He almost startles when Nien suddenly points to the display and clicks something dismissive about the organization of the toggles on the fake X-wing, but Rey doesn't seem to care at all, still warm and relaxed in Poe's arms.

Poe turns his head just slightly, so he can kiss her cheek; it's nothing the others haven't seen before, and it lets him nuzzle at her jaw, whisper against her ear. "Are you sure?"

Rey nods, her brows furrowing. "Yeah, why wouldn't I be?"

Clearing his throat as quietly as he can, Poe tries not to shiver too obviously. He tries as a general rule not to be a gross old man about the many things Rey doesn't quite get when it comes to social and sexual mores, but sometimes his body is weak. "Just checking," he says.

Rey shifts again, and the blanket rustles as she tucks her arm under it so that she can take Poe's hand and slide it under her waistband.

Poe sucks his lower lip between his teeth, grinning, and leans his head against hers. He watches the screen as the holovid plays on, and he runs his fingers through her pubic hair, fingertips brushing the insides of her thighs when she spreads them wider across his knees.

She seems to understand that she needs to be quiet, and if Poe couldn't feel the change in her breathing, he'd never be able to tell from her impassive face that her breath's hitched in her chest and she's so wet and gorgeous between her legs.

Poe bites at the inside of his cheek as his cups a hand around her, and she immediately grinds up against the heel of his palm. He presses it down harder, and Rey's breath hitches.

"Shh," Poe murmurs, more for himself than for her. "I've got you."

He draws his long middle finger slowly up her slit until the rough calluses on the pad of his finger can drag against her clit just the way he knows makes her shiver.

Rey's mouth opens and shuts, a damp little sound, and Poe kisses her cheek impulsively. He can't encourage her to say anything, like he usually would, and it's frustrating but also hot, twisting the tension of this up in Poe's stomach.

In front of them, Ello coughs and reaches across Jessika to take the bowl of bang-corn from Snap before the dozing pilot lets it slip right onto the floor.

Rey rocks her hips down, slow under the blanket, eyes fixed on the film. Poe's fingers slide a little with how slick she is, and he has to adjust quickly to keep her quiet.

His other hand sneaks beneath her tunic, too, first to pull her closer to his chest, more securely up into his lap. She isn't wearing her breast band since she didn't have to train today–a rare thing for her, a day without running or climbing or jumping–and Poe just double-checks that the blanket is tucked up to her neck before rucking the soft linen up to bare as much of her skin to his hands as they can manage right now.

She's warm everywhere, and he hopes his hands don't feel cold in comparison. Rey keeps moving into them instead of away, which he takes as an okay. 

Snap is snoring gently in front of them, and Nien and Iolo are sharing the bowl of bang-corn now. Poe feels like he's breathing too loud, too obviously, and it's a relief when he recognizes an extended in-flight fight sequence begin in the film, sound rising.

Rey wriggles in a way that Poe knows means that she's getting impatient. He can't help but smile at it, because she _wants_ so much and no one's ever told her that she shouldn't. And fuck, he's not gonna be the one to deny her.

He splays his fingers in a _v_ on either side of her clit and lets her rub up against them at her own pace, follows the rhythm she makes. He's probably imagining the wet sound it makes, an impression from his memories, because the music is soaring and explosions are blossoming in the film, and it's too loud to really hear anything else.

He tries to keep an eye on what's happening around them as he weighs her breast in his hand, but it fits so perfectly into his palm and he knows that he can't throw back the blanket and look but he wishes he could. Rey's fingers brush his as she moves her hands: he thinks one must be on her other breast, but her left hand moves his fingers on her cunt until they're exactly where she wants. Rey guides two of his fingers into her, slow and complete.

She's still until he starts moving them, and then Poe feels her shiver, all up her spine, curling in his lap, her foot drawing up against his calf, her fingers digging into his forearm.

Poe's mouth is hidden by her hair when he tips his face closer to whisper in her ear. "Feel good?"

"Guhhngh," Rey says, and jerks a hand up to stuff the blanket and her knuckles into her mouth.

Poe hides his laugh against the side of her face as he curls his fingers deep. "Shhh. Just relax." He breathes in deep, the smell of her hair and soft soap and bang-corn butter and just a hint of the wet smell of sex. "Seems like you feel good, you're so wet. Are you gonna come for me?"

Rey nods, whining a little against the blanket. Her back is tense, and her thighs are shaking a little where they're spread open across his. In the reflected blue light of the holo, Poe watches her eyes skitter across the room. She's been watching the others just like he has, then. She's getting off on it, too, from the way she presses down insistently on his fingers when Jess cheers at some snappy line of dialogue in the film.

"It's okay," Poe murmurs. He keeps his fingers curved deep inside her and presses in fluttering pulses, insistent and clever and he has to keep whispering _shh_ against Rey's little desperate squeaks.

"Hey!" says Karé, and Rey gasps, curling forward in Poe's grip and clenching around his fingers. Poe's heart stops. "Pass the bang-corn, Pava, kriff's sake."

Pava throws a handful of kernels at Karé's head and Rey bursts into laughter, turning to muffle her face in the side of Poe's neck.

Poe relaxes slightly, his fingers slowly curling more confidently inside her, and he lets the hand on her breast slide up to her sternum to feel her laughter reverberate.

Jessika turns to look at them sitting behind her, still buried under their blanket, Rey laughing into Poe's skin. 

Jess' eyes narrow, glancing over the shape of them, but she doesn't say anything. She turns back to her holo and holds the bowl out to Karé, Snap awake again and rubbing his eyes between them.

The film's ten minutes from over, and suddenly Rey's finish feels more urgent to Poe than his own ever has. Her hands have gone slack in the blanket, so he grabs at the hem to keep it up around her shoulders, and focuses on the movements of his other hand.

Her legs curl up so that she's a little warm ball in his lap, not quite straddling him and not quite sitting alongside. She isn't even pretending to watch the holo anymore, her eyes closed and her cheek rested against his collarbone.

"Come on," Poe whispers, unable to help himself. "You can do it, Rey. Let me feel you."

Her face takes on this beautiful look of focus, the same she gets when the lightsaber is in her hands, and one of the things that Poe loves most about her is how Force-damned seriously she takes her own pleasure, like she knows that it's one of the wonders of the universe.

"There," Poe says, kissing her forehead, the side of her cheek, the bridge of her nose. Anything he can reach, he puts his mouth on: her shoulder where her tunic's tugged down, the white knuckles of her fisted hand. He presses his fingers into the same place again and again, rhythmic like her hips taught him, and holds her tightly.

She bites at his collarbone when everything unfurls and she's clenching tight against Poe's fingers, her body greedy and trying to keep him and get moremoremore.

Poe lets his head rest against her hair and rubs his fingertips in slow circles as she rides it out. It's like pulling out of a tight curve in an x-wing, and Poe is breathless, every time, at the joy of it.

"That's it, that's so good," he murmurs, even if it makes no sense. She tightens again once, weakly, sensitive, as he slides his fingers free and pets outside, the wet crease of her inner thighs.

Poe's favorite thing in the world might be feeling that little clench. Rey's gone soft, pliant as she only is in sleep, against his chest, and now he can hold her in both arms. He can feel the way their chests expand to the same beat.

"You okay?" 

Rey nods. "Of course. Why? Are you?"

"I'm really good," Poe admits. He feels worn out, the good sort of tired where he might actually get to sleep tonight.

Rey's thin hand emerges from their blanket-cocoon and brushes against his cheek like she knows. She probably does, Poe thinks; he's fully aware that Rey can see right through him, with or without the Force.

"You can carry me back to our room now," she decides, going heavy and limp in his arms, her hand going to her own forehead. She's copying the fair maiden of the holofilm, maybe, or just being ridiculous. Either way, Poe's more than a little in love with her for it.

He kisses her palm. It smells like her. "Alright, sweetheart." He glances quickly beneath the blanket to make sure that her tunic's back on straight before shifting out from under her so that she can clamber up onto his back, her legs strong but a little shaky around his waist.

"Ugh," Iolo says. "Should've known you couldn't go an entire holo without sneaking off to make out, Commander." 

Poe tries to look something other than smug. Jess, at least, seems to notice that he can't quite do it. She makes a face at him, and he makes one back, and Rey digs her heels into his hips as a reminder. Her head is lolling against his shoulder.

"We're just going to sleep, Arana," Poe says, as though any suggestion otherwise is laughable. "The ending is too predictable. I don't know why you keep making us watch this one, Pava."

"Right," drawls Jessika. "It'd be terrible to be _predictable_ , Commander."

"Commander," Rey says, in a rather different tone than they've been using, warm against his ear. "My Master won't be pleased if I can't keep my eyes open in our lessons tomorrow."

"Not the Jedi thing again," Snap says, not unkindly. "Please, spare us. Take your wayward padawan and go, Poe."

Poe nods and hitches her up higher so she can get a better grip around his shoulders. "Night, everyone. Drills at 0800. Be ready on the tarmac."

"Yeah, _sure_ we'll see you at 0800," Jess mutters, and blows him a kiss. Rey reaches out and curls her fist around open air to catch it, winks at Jess over Poe's shoulder. She sleepily blows one back, because Rey likes Jessika, and Poe smiles to himself as he carries her off through the winding, dim corridors of the base back to the Officers' quarters.

 

**002.**

Poe kisses the side of her knee, lets his teeth edge against the shadow of the soft underside that makes Rey's toes curl, her thigh tense up ticklishly. "You wanna go again?" She's come twice on his tongue and fingers tonight, which is how he ended up halfway down the mattress, stroking her calf, eyes half-closed and a little sleepy.

Rey props herself up on both elbows so she can look down at him. His hair is a riot of disarrayed curls from her fingers. "I do, but... I think I want more than that."

Tilting his head, resting his chin against her thigh, Poe blinks up at her. "Yeah? We can do whatever you want, really."

Rey touches Poe's jaw, then drags her fingers until she can press one against his lower lip, wiping away some of the wet. "I want you to fuck me."

Poe blinks. "That's very direct. And not particularly polite." He kisses the fingertip that's still playing at his mouth. "You sure?"

"How would you say it?" Rey asks, curiously, letting her finger trail across his cheek. "None of the words I know for it are very polite."

Poe hums thoughtfully as he turns his face to nuzzle into her palm. It's warm and dry and smells like their skin. "That's probably how I'd say it," he admits. "But I'm not particularly polite."

Rey's smile is full of teeth when he glances up again. "So do you _want_ to fuck me?" she asks, and when he chokes she admits, "I want to hear you say it."

Poe swallows, and then has to swallow again. He doesn't want to be hovering down with his face still near Rey's thighs when he says this, so he slides up the mattress and smooths her sweaty hair back from her face. He searches her eyes with his before leaning down to nuzzle his nose against hers.

Rey juts her chin up, pushing their lips together for a split second. Her eyes are soft, and she's holding his gaze easily. "It's okay if you don't want to," she says.

Poe's thumb traces her cheekbone, just below her eye. He kisses her again, softer this time and sweeter. 

Then he sets his teeth to her earlobe, tugs at his, and his voice comes out low and rough. "Sweetheart, I wanna fuck you _so_ bad."

Rey moans, her chest falling beneath his and then expanding again in deep gulping breaths. No one ever taught her to mask arousal, and Poe's so fucking glad of it. "Kriff, Poe."

"Oh, now it's 'kriff,'" Poe teases.

"Don't wanna scandalize you again," Rey says, her breath catching as he sucks a long kiss at her throat.

Poe's tongue traces over one of her thin scars; it makes a constellation with her freckles. "I've spent half the night with my face in your pussy. You can't scandalize me."

Rey laughs as she tucks her chin to watch him work his way down her arm, across her chest until he's taking her nipple between his teeth lightly. "Then I guess it wouldn't matter if I told you how wet I am waiting for your cock."

"Oh, fuck," Poe mutters. He has to close his eyes. "You're my favorite, you know that? My favorite person in the entire galaxy."

This, Rey blushes at, her cheeks going pink and her lip white where it's caught between her teeth, like she needs to tamp down a grin. Like she even has to. Or like she could.

"Language," she mutters, which is what BB-8 tells them any time they forget it’s under the table at dinner and say something its algorithms deem inappropriate.

Poe lifts his face so he can look at her again. He kisses her chin, since that's what he can reach. "Hey, I mean it."

Rey kisses the tip of his nose. "I know. You're my favorite person too, although I dunno about the _entire galaxy_ , that seems a bit far-fetched..."

"Far-fetched," Poe makes a face, and digs a hand into her side, where he knows it'll make her squirm. "You're very funny, you know that?" 

"Luke taught me all his jokes," Rey agrees, eyes dancing even when her voice is solemn.

Poe mugs at her. "Don't talk about Luke right now."

Rey shrugs. "You got distracted."

"I'm not distracted, I'm..." Poe hesitates, because he isn't distracted–he's stalling, but he's not sure why.

Rey gives him a look which feels too much like she knows exactly what he's doing. "I was being serious," she says, quietly. "We don't have to do anything tonight, or we can do something else, if you want."

"No," Poe says. "I do want to, I just... feel like you deserve. I don't know. More than some scruffy pilot in a too-small bed."

"Poe." Rey props up on her elbow again. She's got a crease between her eyebrows. "I raised myself at Niima Outpost. It's not an accident that I've gotten to wait this long. Or to choose you, now, like this. Even in a too-small bed." She scowls deeper. "And I like when you're scruffy. It leaves marks on my thighs."

Poe knows this, if he stops to think about it. It's almost more terrifying to consider that she's thought this through, planned it, even, and wants him _specifically_. Because she deserves a lot, and he's going to give her everything he has. 

"Alright," he says. He strokes a hand down her side, rubs his fingers at the delicate skin over her hip.

"D'you believe me?"

Poe nods. "Yeah." His hand slides to her inner thigh, where sure enough the skin is red from his two-day shadow. Rey makes a little noise as he smooths his palm over the scratched-up skin.

 _It'll feel so nice when she wraps her legs around his waist,_ she thinks, loud enough that he can catch it without her having to place it in his mind.

Poe wets his lips with the tip of his tongue before he pushes Rey's thigh back, opening her legs up for him to fit between.

Rey sighs, soft in the back of her throat like the binary purring that he's heard her exchange with BB-8. Her body is so warm against his that Poe's head is spinning.

She's already pink and swollen from his mouth and his fingers. Poe takes his cock in hand and runs just the stretched tip of it over her, just gets it wet, lets Rey get used to how it feels against her. He burns the look of it into his brain–someday once he's ancient and his mind's all scrambled, if this is the only thing he remembers, it'll be a life well-lived. Rey shifts, and Poe tears his eyes away to see that she's propped on her elbows again, also looking down at the place where he's teasing her clit with the ridge of his cockhead. 

She looks up at him, and he almost looks away; it feels like it should be too intense to manage, like their eyes meeting would complete a circuit and tip this into overdrive. He's glad for whatever impulse keeps him staring at her face, because she grins, brilliantly, flushed down her throat. It's electrifying, but it's not _too much_. Poe's beginning to think he could never have too much of her.

"Is that all you got?" Rey asks, and she flutters against him.

Poe huffs, shifting the arm he's propped up on, edging a little closer to her on his knees. Rey spreads her legs wider around them, and Poe doesn't need to focus on that, on how flexible she is from all her jedi training lately, if he's going to make this good for her. He rubs the head of his cock across her clit again and down between her folds, and this time when it catches, he presses a little. Barely centimeters worth of a shift forward, up on his knees, but enough, and they're both watching as the head sinks _in_.

Rey sighs a little and reaches up to slide her fingers through Poe's hair just to touch him, just to hold on. Poe doesn't think it's likely to _hurt_ her, really, because just an hour ago he had four fingers tucked into her and she rode down on them very enthusiastically, thank you, but–cocks just feel different from fingers. Or at least, they do for him, and he has to assume that it's true for vaginas, too. It's uncomfortable, the first time.

"I can stop," he says, touching her thigh with the hand not carefully holding his cock so he doesn't do anything too stupid. "Any time, alright, and get you off another way, you just gotta let me know, Rey."

"No, I like it," Rey says. "Just–it's a little too slow. I want to get to the good bit."

"Of course you do," Poe murmurs, shaking his head. It's Rey: running into everything head-first because now that she has options, she wants to try them _all_ , and preferably all at the same time.

He squeezes her hip, rubs his thumb over the sharp little bone where it raises beneath her warm skin. "It might be better a different way," he offers. "On your side, maybe?"

Rey tilts her head. "Does that feel better? If I'm on my side? 'Cause this doesn't feel _bad_ , it's just not like your tongue or... you know. It's different."

"Yeah," Poe says, "I mean, it's different anyway, but, ah, the angle is what makes it good, usually? Or better? And it's usually harder to get a good angle like this–we should put a pillow under your hips, definitely, if we stay like this–" he bites the inside of his cheek, trying to stop the rambling.

He also doesn't want to say _and anyway it'll be different when I'm inside you, you'll see what I mean,_ because that would mean admitting that he's going to be inside her, and that's. They need to make a decision first.

"That's okay, we can try the other way," Rey says as she squirms away and rolls onto her side. She looks at Poe over her shoulder. "Where do I put my limbs?"

It's a good thing that Poe had been biting his mouth closed, because the noise he makes at Rey's thoughtless departure is embarrassing enough as it is, half-muffled. They're not touching anywhere now, and Poe can feel the absence sharply. He reaches out, running his hand up her side, just to reassure himself.

"You'll see, just hold on," he promises, fitting himself to her back carefully, taking a moment to press his nose into the hair at the nape of her neck and breathe.

He palms her thighs open again and pets the space between them fondly, slipping one finger in and out of her a few times just to make sure she's still wet.

She is; velvet and silk and everything good in the galaxy, and Poe keeps his longest finger circling so, so lightly over her clit as he positions himself again to start the slow push inside.

"It feels... more," Rey says, and then oh, _Force_ , her hand is pushing Poe's out of the way so she can investigate, feel over the line of him where he's just barely begun to get inside. She strokes up the length of his cock between her legs and all the way back until her fingertips brush through wiry black hair; she runs her index finger around the stretch of her body around him.

"Move," she demands, quiet but sure. "I want to feel it."

"You're gonna kill me," Poe mutters.

"No," Rey corrects, "I'm going to _fuck_ you, if you ever get to it."

Poe warms all over at that, goosebumps making him shiver and press closer against her back. The way she so interchangeably mentions how she's going to fuck him and he's going to fuck her make him breathless, and he wonders if she knows the implication, the other ways that could be meant, and done. She's so smart, his Rey, she must. He curls his hand at her waist and gives her what she wants, pressing up and in, and then back a little, moving shallowly so she can get a feel for the friction of it.

Rey gasps again, exhales with a quiet, good sound, and then the hand she has between her legs is less curious measuring and more purposeful. She knew what she liked with her own fingers long before she started things with Poe.

"Yeah," Poe murmurs, nosing her hair out of the way so he can kiss beneath her ear. "Tell me what you need." He wants desperately to try deeper, but he's still hesitant to push anything, especially when it might just be for his benefit.

Rey squirms again and pushes back onto him, instead, still impatient. "I don't know yet. It's not like it is in your head when you're imagining it. I want that."

Poe laughs, and immediately quiets himself, kissing her throat apologetically. "How do I imagine it, then?" He wonders which of the thousand times that he's thought about this Rey has tapped into.

Rey is slow, this time, lets it linger as she pulls away _again_ and Poe might honestly cry–but then she pushes his shoulders down, flat on his back on the mattress, and slings her leg over his waist. 

"Don't move your hands," she murmurs, and Poe makes a show of wiggling his fingers before lacing them together and putting them behind his head to watch her. His eyes are dark and greedy and loving.

Rey shimmies down his legs just enough to grant his cock a little apologetic kiss before she holds it straight and lines it up and _drops_.

Poe makes a strangled, helpless sound, staring up at her, just barely remembers to keep his hands still. "Rey," he says, after the split-second when his lungs are refilling with air, "Force, sweetheart, are you alright?" Her face is tense, strangely unreadable in the way it is when she's concentrating on some jedi meditation trick.

Rey nods in a jerk of her head. "Fine." She rocks a little from side to side, and then she squeezes tight onto Poe experimentally once, twice. "It's different than I thought. But it's not bad."

"Do you want me to do anything?" Poe asks, and _he_ wants to, wants to sit up and gather her into his arms and pepper her face with kisses until she stops being so shock-tight all around him, but she said to keep his hands still, and she's the boss.

"I want it to be good," Rey says, sounding frustrated, and when she looks at him Poe nearly does move, barely holds himself back. "I just–" 

"Will you let me try?" Poe asks. "Just, give me a few minutes, Rey, and if it's not working we'll do something else that _will_ be good, I promise." If he hadn't doubted her to begin with, if he'd just done what she wanted, she could already be enjoying this by now, and Poe hates himself a little for being over-cautious.

Rey nods again, but doesn't say anything–Poe knows from experience that it's probably hard enough for her not to hide her face, or storm off, and he doesn't press her for words.

"I'm gonna sit up," he says, moving his arms slowly until he's rubbing her thighs, stroking up her sides. "Alright?" He's narrating more for himself than her, like she can't see straight into his mind with how frantically loud he's thinking right now. He eases upright, pulling pillows from across the bed and shoving them behind him, propping up against the headboard. "Now, c'mere." He raises his knees, easing her forward, finds one of her hands with his and cups her cheek in the other, fingers easing into her hair and guiding her face down for a kiss.

 _I'm sorry,_ he thinks. _I should know to trust you by now, I know you can take it, I'm just–I'm so scared of hurting you, and I forget sometimes, how strong you are._

He's still inside her, and she's still–playing, is the only word Poe can think for it, the way she's experimenting with flickers of her muscles, trying to pull at him the way she does with his fingers.

"It doesn't hurt," she promises him, her lips against his mouth. "It's just weird. You're bigger than I thought."

"Is that a compliment or a complaint?" 

"Don't know yet," Rey admits.

That's fine. Poe can work with that. He nibbles on her lower lip, the way she likes, tugs her hair a little. They're so good at _this_ , and maybe that was another mistake, that he didn't pick a position where they could've kept this up before.

Rey murmurs into the kiss, and Poe lets one of his hands trail up to her breast so he can roll her nipple beneath his thumb, plump it hard again and sensitive. She's come from this alone before, once, three or four orgasms into a weekend they spent entirely in bed.

Her hips roll down reflexively, and she goes suddenly still, shuddering. Poe pulls back to open his eyes and she's staring at him. She does it again, thighs tensing on either side of his hips, and her mouth falls open, slack. "Yeah?" Poe asks, something singing through him like adrenaline, like the uneasy joy of a barrel roll at top speed. He presses his own hips up, runs his fingernail over her nipple.

Rey moans in the back of her throat as she nods; she leans her forehead against Poe's like she can't quite hold her head up.

Poe squeezes her hand in his and lets it fall against his chest, presses his fingers down between them to rub at her clit. She's wetter against his touch than she had been even a moment ago, and it feels like a victory.

Rey makes another noise and tugs at Poe's hair. "Can you reach to–put your mouth, while?" She arches enough to offer her breasts up to him again. "'Cause I'd rather... it's just a lot at once, if you're touching there while you're in, too."

Poe retracts his fingers immediately, nodding, bending to kiss across her collarbones, down her sternum, letting his teeth run against the curve of her breast. He spreads his hand on her stomach instead–maybe she'll like that more, the vague pressure of the heel of his palm against her pubic bone when she grinds forward.

"Does that feel better?" 

"Mmm." Rey's little sound is happy, if contemplative. "How long does it take before I'm good at it?" Her mouth twitches a little. "I want you to like it."

"Oh," Poe says, "Rey–" he raises his head, licking his lips. He doesn't know how to tell her, so he nudges her nose with his, a different kind of kiss, invites her to look inside.

He plays with her nipple again as the strange, soft-warm tingles of Rey peering into his mind begin, and then she spreads everywhere, inhabiting his body to feel herself from the outside.

 _You don't even have to try to make me like it,_ Poe thinks, face heating up as she sifts through his arousal. He's been focusing so hard on her that it feels like rediscovering his own pleasure as she examines it.

He lets Rey stay in his head as he stares into her eyes and wraps his free arm around her, pulling her closer to his chest so he can start to thrust up into her, little rolls that are deliberate, slow, but more friction than the slow grind they'd been trying. He lets her feel through him as much as he tries to make sure that she really feels him.

Suddenly Rey has her hands in his hair, tugging as she arches her back, lifts herself and presses back insistently, and just that easily they've found their rhythm.

"That's it," Poe whispers, and he's pushing harder and faster, relishing in the sound of their skin meeting and separating. He's always loved that part.

Rey presses her face to his shoulder, breathing hard, and moans. _This,_ she tells him, their link wavering as she reverses it, pulling him into her mind, _this is what you imagine._

Poe kisses her hair where he can reach, over and over, and the hand he has around her waist tilts as he tries to help her find _just_ the right angle–he's good at it with his fingers now, knows exactly how to curve into her and where to tap in light presses until she _feels_ it and he can rub his fingertips just so until she comes wet and messy and everywhere. He wants to feel that on his cock, the way she loses control like that and gets loud and slippery and her blunt fingernails tear at his shoulders.

"Please," Rey says, harsh against his ear as she raises her head, tucks it against his neck now. "Kriff, Poe." She wants it harder, doesn't have to say that part when he can feel it in the way she's clenching around him, driving her own hips down chasing the feeling.

"Okay, sweetheart, work with me." Poe shifts on the mattress so that he can kneel up just a bit, get more power from his thighs.

"Ohh," Rey says, shakier than before, louder, her fist twisting his curls so tightly it stings.

"There we go, pretty girl," Poe mutters, and he uses both of his hands now to shift her until he sees the change in her eyes, a bright spark, and she keens once, a sweet sound that he knows very, very well. "That's it, that feels good, right?"

Rey nods, chin jerking, and Poe can see her swallow as she leans her head back. "You feel so-" she laughs, voice hoarse, and shakes her head a little disbelievingly. "It's so good!"

"This is what I imagined," Poe promises. "Just you. Like this. Making you feel like this."

"You are," Rey agrees, and her eyes are so warm, serious, even as her body is speeding up to meet his. "You make me feel so good, Poe." 

Poe digs his teeth into his bottom lip. She's too good at knowing what he needs, and he really wants to last for her.

Rey is working with him, now, always a quick study, and he doesn't have to hold her up with both hands anymore. He remembers _too much_ when he tried to put his fingers on her, but he presses his hand against her again, the heel of his thumb and his palm taking up so much space on her small frame.

She sucks in a breath, and one of her hands untangles from his hair to fit over his, press it more firmly against her lower stomach. "That feels good," she says, surprised, and the next time she sinks down on him she angles her hips forward, presses into his palm.

"Glad," Poe mutters, and he's been reduced to one-word answers, so he really hopes she kriffing comes soon. "Wan'you to."

He's not sure if Rey even means for him to feel the little surge of fond humor in her thoughts, this time, because her eyes are closed, head falling forward against his shoulder again. "Me too," she says, belatedly, and he can feel the truth of that in her body. She's lost their rhythm, is riding him in short, needy movements that are just offbeat of each other.

"Oh, please come," Poe groans, and his teeth scrape her shoulder, lips sucking onto her clavicle. "Wanna feel it."

She's laughing at him when she does, arms twining around his neck and shaking so hard she comes almost all the way off his cock, clenching around the head in the aftershocks, thighs trembling.

" _Fuck_!" Poe bites between his teeth, loud and rough and he's holding her too tight and it feels so. fucking. good.

"You," Rey says, "C'mon, I wanna feel it too." Somewhere in the back of his brain, Poe is thinking that she's probably sore by now, oversensitive, that he should ask, but Rey is sinking slowly back down on his cock, fluttering around him on every inch, and Poe's learned his lesson about thinking he knows what's best for her tonight.

It only takes another four rough pumps before Poe buries his face into her neck and tightens his hands on her hips and comes for what feels like _lightyears_.

Rey hums against his neck. Her mouth brushes his jaw. Poe can barely think, but he has these snapshots of memory forever. "I think I get it," Rey murmurs. "Why you thought about this so much."

"Huh?" Poe is a little bit dumb, lightheaded and exhausted, and when he peels open one eye to look up at Rey, the light bounces around her like stars, and he wonders absently if this is what the Force is like. "Oh. 'At's nice." He pets her thigh and hip and around the curve of her bum with a heavy hand. "I like you."

Rey looks at him for a moment, oddly thoughtful, and kisses his mouth softly. "I love you," she says.

Poe opens both of his eyes for that, and runs the side of his nose along the side of hers, nudges their cheeks together softly. "I know."

Rey wrinkles her nose at him. " _And?_ "

Poe drops his head back with a laugh and rolls his eyes dramatically. "Still so demanding! I haven't fucked you well enough for one night?"

Rey pokes him in the ribs, a firestorm of little fingers. " _And?_ "

Poe catches her hands and tucks their fingers together, twines them, lifts them to kiss every one of her rough knuckles and licks over the littlest finger of her left hand just to make her squirm, still seated on him as he slowly goes soft inside her. "And what?"

"And," Rey says pointedly, "You love me, too."

"I do," Poe agrees, his voice soft and sweet as he sucks at the tip of her thumb. "I love you, too."

Rey's smile is like a sunrise glinting off the nose of Black One. Poe wants to fall asleep inside it. His brain is mixing metaphors, but he knows this much.

"I know," she says.

 

**003.**

General Organa pulls Poe aside as Rey is busy reassuring Chewie, for the thousandth time, that Poe really is a good pilot and they will bring the Falcon back without a scratch. Really, not a scratch.

"Not that I don't appreciate the vacation," Poe grins, "but why am I being sent on this mission, again, General? I know we're low on pilots, but–" 

Leia gives him an unimpressed look. "Why am I getting the sense you don't appreciate the vacation, then, Commander? And you're being sent because you're my best pilot, and I want you on the mission."

"Right," Poe says. "And what exactly is it that I'm doing again?"

"You're going to meet with Lando Calrissian at the casino in Cloud City," Leia says. "And keeping an eye open."

"Yes ma'am," Poe says. "Is Mister Calrissian expecting me?"

"Oh, who knows?" Leia mutters, looking more ruffled than Poe has ever seen her. "That man expects everything and nothing all the time. And never."

Poe feels the ripple of discomfort that he imagines one does when their mother talks about a holofilm star from her younger days. He's caught between a grimace and a laugh. "I'll report back when I know something, then, General."

"Good man, Dameron." Leia nods towards the Falcon. "I believe a pretty Jedi is waiting for you."

"Kriff, I'd better run." Poe gives her a wink and a salute. 

Rey is stowing a bedroll and her rucksack in one of the bunks as he comes aboard, and he squeezes her shoulder as he passes. "Last one to the cabin is co-pilot," he mutters, quiet enough she might not hear it.

"Excuse me, but this is _my_ ship!" Rey says, and spins on her toes to get in front of him, starting to race toward the cockpit. "You might be a Commander in the Resistance, but this here is smuggler territory."

"And I thought you were a jedi!" Poe laughs, gets out of her way, dodging a sharp elbow to the ribs. "Honor-bound to uphold law and order in the galaxy."

Rey snorts, and manages to step on his foot even though he's not even trying for the pilot's seat now. "Well, you know Luke," Rey calls over her shoulder. "He's a bit lax in the old ways."

Poe actually doesn't want to rush this, because stepping into the cockpit of the Millennium Falcon has been his dream since he was four years old and he saw the freighter land in the field just beyond the Force tree for the first time.

He leans into the frame of the door, taking it in. Rey is already priming them for take-off, fingers flying over switches and gears, tapping the displays that stick. She glances back at him. "Get in here, Dameron, you'll miss all the fun."

Poe smiles, slow and buoyant, and bites his lip at the picture that Rey makes all stretched out in a co-pilot's seat made for someone–well, the size of a wookiee.

"You know I don't mind if you take lead on this one," he says. "Always liked a lady in charge, to be honest."

Rey's face turns softer as she looks up at him. "I can fly her all the time. This may be your only chance, you know. Chewbacca does not trust you."

"Chewbacca is..." Poe makes a face as he steps up carefully, slides into the pilot's seat. "Probably right. I'm feeling a terrible urge to steal this ship and we haven't even left the hangar yet."

Rey laughs, and it makes Poe's heart stutter the same way it always does, because Rey laughs like it's always a surprise that something can be funny. That she could be that happy. 

He wants to make her laugh every hour of the day.

"I won't tell," she says, confidentially, her hand on his armrest, fingers brushing his sleeve. "But you should at least test-flight it first, make sure you like it before you risk dismemberment for it."

Poe finally slides into the captain's seat. Han Solo's seat. It's different from Black One, and it's different from every other ship he's flown. There's something–buzzy, about it, like the Millennium Falcon knows exactly how legendary it is. He runs his hands over the console. He'd memorized the schematics from this baby back when he was still in primary school.

"It's special, isn't it," Rey says, quietly. "It knows it, I think."

Poe nods and knocks his shoulder against hers. "Yeah." Then he winks. "Now, let's show this old bucket of bolts what a couple of real pilots can do."

Rey imagines that somewhere, Han's Force ghost straightens up from a sabacc board and looks insulted.

They're both damn good at what they do, and the Falcon eases away from the planet's surface as smoothly as she has in her history. Rey can feel it humming and alive beneath her fingers, and when she glances over at Poe's face, she can tell he can, too.

She'd ask him if it's everything he'd hoped, but she can read it on his face. There's joy written across it so clearly that she doesn't even need the Force, but she has the benefit of that, too, and right now Poe is brighter than the sun and bubblier than the Utapau'ian wine he'd brought her a few weeks ago after a spy mission. They'd spent the next two days in bed.

Rey squirms in her seat. They're barely past the atmosphere of the planet, not even half an hour into the flight and she feels overheated and greedy. Poe's hands on the controls are all grace and guidance, easing them into place, teasing an extra burst of energy out of the engine, gently handling the Falcon so that she sings through the darkness of space.

Poe has beautiful hands. They aren't soft and slim and elegant like the actors in holos, but they're strong and sure and _talented_. Poe moves his hands so confidently that it's hard not to feel safe around him.

Rey knows she's staring, but her own actions are automatic, and once they're out of orbit there's nothing for her to do but watch.

Poe's thumb glides over a sliding dial and the engines purr. He crooks a knuckle around one of the toggles and the Falcon responds, veering around a shiny bit of space debris.

Rey is responding as inevitably as the ship; she can feel it through her bones, thrumming and warm. She wiggles in her seat, checks their location against the predicted flight path. They're in empty space. She sets a hand on Poe's thigh.

Poe looks over at her, and Rey bites her lip, crawling her fingers along to the inside of his thigh.

Laughing, Poe swats at her hand halfheartedly. "What? You don't like my flying, sweetheart?"

"No," Rey says, shaking her head. "I like it. A lot."

Poe turns to look at her this time, his eyes working over her flushed face, down her throat, how she can't keep her thighs from clenching together in her seat. "Kriff, Rey."

Rey bites her lip again, worrying it between her front teeth. "Is it okay?"

"Of course you're okay," Poe says, his eyes flickering out to the blackness in front of them and back to her. "Maybe not the best timing, but. I can set her on auto for a bit, if you think Chewbacca won't have my head for it. Those bunks looked big enough to share."

Rey shakes her head and reaches out to flick all the toggles to set the Falcon into autopilot. They were going to be drifting in hyperspace for a while, anyways. "Not in the bunks."

Poe stares, first at her fingers over the controls, then back at her face. It's not immediately computing.

Rey rolls her eyes and crosses her arms in front of her to peel out of her pale cotton tunic.

"Oh, hey, wow," Poe says, managing to sound almost scandalized. "Not that I don't, um, appreciate the view, but–are you sure about this? You don't think Chewbacca–"

"Would you please," Rey says, face hidden in her tunic, "stop talking about Chewbacca?"

"Right," says Poe's voice, a little gruffer than usual. "Yes. Not a good topic."

"I can think of better ones," Rey agrees. "Like how you're still dressed, why is that?"

"I'm a little bit in shock," Poe says defensively, but he's already working on the buttons down his shirt. "I'm just– _you_."

Rey leaves her breast band on, going for her pants next, leaning against the back of her seat to shove her hips up and shimmy free. They're a ridiculous sight, but there's no one to say so, and all Rey can think is that she _wants_.

The silence of hyperspace around them is lulling, like they're the only people in the entire galaxy, and everything is just Poe and Rey and space and _energy_ , the Force flowing around them in loops even though time's stopped.

"Rey," Poe says, urgently, and Rey shoves her pants free of her ankles savagely, crawls across the console and tumbles into his lap.

Poe's just shoved his civvies down around his ankles, and it's up to Rey to fold down the elastic on his underwear until she can get a hand around him. His shirt's on but all of the buttons are open, his chest smooth and defined and already a little sweaty.

Rey scoots forward in his lap, knees on either side of his hips on the leather seat, and presses her forehead to his, looking down between them. It's awkwardly hot, half clothed bodies meeting in the blue-toned light of the overheads.

Poe runs his hand over the curve of Rey's back, spreading his palm and fingers around her hip. "You never cease to amaze me, you."

"Have to keep you on your toes," Rey smiles. "Don't want you to get bored of me."

Rey knows a promise when she hears it. She kisses his stubbled chin, his mouth when she can reach it.

Poe groans low in his chest and then those capable hands are shifting her hips and lifting her just enough that the velvety tip of Poe's cock brushes over her, sliding wet once over her clit before Rey reaches down to hold him steady enough that she can start to sink down.

"Hey," Poe murmurs, his mouth brushing kisses along her jaw. "Hold on, let me–" he brings his fingers up to his mouth, and Rey watches as he gets them wet, presses them between her legs, rubbing gently around where she's clenching on the head of his cock.

Rey shudders, rocking into the pressure of his fingers. She's fucking down on just the head of his cock, barely anything but enough that Poe's eyes are dark and his mouth wet and pretty where his lips are open to get enough breath.

"Rey," he says, low, brings his hand up and curls still-damp fingers around the back of her neck, gently tilts her head to kiss her again.

It's a long, slow sink down onto him so deep Rey can feel him in her throat as he kisses her just as deeply, one hand still touching the place where they're joined, feeling out the stretch of her around him.

She rolls her hips down against him and Poe's mouth breaks away from hers, head hitting the back of his chair as he laughs hoarsely. "Force, Rey, sweetheart."

Rey laughs breathlessly and nuzzles in close so she can suck on his neck. She's recently discovered that if she bites down just a little, she can leave a bruise in the perfect shape of her mouth, and everyone on base knows that Poe is hers. She rather likes it.

"Put your hands back on the controls," she whispers. "Pilot this bird."

Poe shudders underneath her, and his eyes are dark, shining when they open to meet hers. "Yes ma'am." He has to lean up against her to reach the override, and then he's inhaling, sharply, and there's a subtle hitch in the engine as he resumes manual control.

Rey keeps up the pressure on his neck as she starts to lift herself and sink down again, rocking and circling.

Poe clears his throat. "Should I give a flight report?"

"Yeah," Rey decides. "Keep your captain apprised, Commander."

Poe glances past her, out into the endlessness. "Well, captain, it's an incredible day for a joy ride–"

Rey hums against Poe's ear. "Yeah, it is."

"We seem to have encountered a little unexpected turbulence," Poe continues, "but I'm confident I can take us through it."

Rey giggles into the soft curve where Poe's shoulder meets his neck, and she buries her face under the collar of his loose shirt. Even though this was her idea, it's overwhelming.

Poe wraps one arm around her waist, easing her closer against his chest. He can easily reach any necessary controls one-handed, if he needs to. "So if you'll just sit back and enjoy your flight," he murmurs, kissing her hair.

Rey tucks her knees up so that she's cuddled right up into his chest. The angle of the seat keeps Poe tilted forward and her tilted back just enough that every time Rey moves, Poe's cock drags thick and perfect against her most favorite place inside, where everything turns into fireworks and her fingers go a little numb and stupid.

Poe’s hand spreads warm at the small of her back, encouraging her movements. “You’re incredible,” he says, watching her face, eyes sliding away only for a moment to check the racing stars beyond. "Rey, Force, I wish you could see this–"

Rey keeps her face hidden, but Poe feels soft fingertips at the corner of his mind, gentle, asking permission before coming inside to borrow his eyes.

Poe laughs, and kisses her temple. _You could have just turned around,_ he tells her, wordlessly.

Rey shakes her head against his neck and whispers _so close like this_ right into his mind.

Poe's arm tightens around her ribs, hauling her down in his lap for a moment as his hips press up helplessly.

Rey whimpers, her own eyes closed as she watches the universe speeding around them, blue light and white stars.

Poe kisses her cheek again, lips dragging across her warm skin, settling beneath her ear. "See how good you feel," he offers.

Rey's presence is warm and soft as she settles deeper into his head, and Poe wouldn't have thought that he'd like so much for her to do this, but he _does_. It's the most intimate he's ever been with anyone, when Rey is inside him even as he's inside her.

He eases his hips up gently, a tentative thrust that presses his hipbones against her thighs. She's not the only one who treasures the bruises they leave each other, and he knows she can feel him, thinking about it now.

Rey whimpers, feeling both fucked in every direction and she never knows how to place the feelings she gets from Poe when they do this, the warmth and wet and snug fitting into corners of her that she doesn't really have but can still feel so clearly.

Poe kisses her closed eyelids, the bridge of her nose, her half-open mouth. _Close_ , he warns her, in case the urgency is lost in relay. 

Rey nods. "Me, too."

"No," Poe says. "I mean–to Bespin."

Rey laughs, her head tipping back, abs clenching. "Force, Poe."

Poe can feel her laughter against his chest and around his cock, and he shivers. "That too, though. You first?"

"Make me," Rey challenges, although she's still soft and curled against his chest, her fingers playing with one of his small, dark nipples absently. Honestly, she doesn't care if the Bespin guards see them like this.

"Alright." Poe runs his hand from the small of her back around her hip, presses it between them, his thumb resting just beneath her clit.

He _thinks_ at her, all of the things that he's going to do once they get to the room they're staying in at this city in the clouds. He pictures the way she'll taste, her thighs tight around his ears, and it's half imagination and half memory. Heady, sweet, he's drowning in the way Rey shudders against his tongue.

Rey shudders, here and now, rides down against his fingers and his cock, gripping the headrest behind him. She pushes thoughts back to him, how this is a tease, how she wants him with more leverage, later tonight, maybe on his knees behind her, pulling her back on his cock with both hands on her hips.

Poe laughs, breathless. "Gonna be like that, huh?"

Rey rubs up against his thumb and clenches down on him, tired smile pressing her teeth to his shoulder. "You started it, Commander."

"And I'm gonna finish it," Poe murmurs back. "We've got three whole days to spend naked in a big bed, sweetheart. Anything you want, you got it."

 _Just you_ , Rey thinks. She's so close it's pounding in her bloodstream. Poe rubs his thumb up, across her clit, and it's enough, makes her jerk in his lap, her head hitting his shoulder hard.

"You've got me," Poe assures her, his hand slowly sliding free from between them, curling around her hip, stroking her side. "Kriff, Rey."

She chokes a high sound, mouth buried against his shoulder, and Poe can't help the stream of words, _we're gonna be alone and you can be as loud as you want. And I want it, I want to hear you._

Rey's laughter sounds like bells in his head, when she hasn't even caught her breath yet. _We'll see who's loudest, Dameron._

Poe shakes his head and grits his teeth and tries to focus on programming in the landing coordinates even as Rey clenches and relaxes experimentally around him as she relishes in the aftershocks of her orgasm. "You know I love a healthy competition."

"I've already won," Rey points out, sounding sleepy, muffled against his neck. "No shame in coming last, though." Her fingers dig into the sensitive skin at his ribs. "Are you–"

Poe nods. "Just–trying not to crash us first–"

"You can do it," Rey mumbles, soft against the skin beneath his ear.

"I know, just–not sure if I can do both at the same–ah, time–"

Rey huffs, and sits up, looks over her shoulder. "Let me, then." She doesn't give him time to argue, one lean leg untucking from around his thighs, lifting herself free of him for a split second as she turns around, hands brushing his from the controls. Her aim is better on the landing than it is reseating herself on his cock.

"Oof," Poe huffs, pulling her down on a better angle. His hands are tight around her hips so he can thrust up into her fast and rough.

"There," Rey says, a little choked, her fingers clenching over the lever of the brake. "Poe, kriff."

"Well," Poe mutters, "We're gonna have customs agents and liaisons for kriffing Leia–Organa–showing up–any second."

Rey bears down on him, one hand bracing herself on the dash and the other sliding between her legs, her fingers flying over her clit. "Then it would be– _awfully_ –sad–if I beat you two to nothing."

She does, too, always so sensitive, especially after she's already come. She tightens against him, fluttering and begging, and the hot rhythm of it finally pushes Poe over the edge.

 _Finally, old man,_ and she sounds amused, even in his head. She's slumped forward over half the control panel, but she raises her head to look back at him, hair curling at the edges of her forehead with sweat, grin stretching her mouth wide.

Poe's too out of breath to respond beyond pawing at her hip and belly sleepily.

Rey is the one who carefully disentangles them, buttons his shirt with one hand as she pulls on her trousers with the other. She makes a face as she grabs for her tunic, and Poe kisses her elbow, the closest part of her, apologetically. He can imagine how gross her trousers will be by the time they get to change.

(He can't even pretend not to be a little pleased. Rey may like leaving love-bites on him where the whole world can see, but Poe bristles with something hot and not entirely unlike a hyperspace jump all his own whenever he knows that Rey's got his come leaking out of her as someone else talks to this beautiful girl, and they have no idea.)

Rey wrinkles her nose, grinning at him. "What?" 

"Nothing," Poe shakes his head. He'll tell her later, when he can _show_ her with more than simple words.

Rey smooths her hair back into her top bun, then adjusts Poe's collar. Her hands are light as they straighten out over his collarbone. She pats his chest. "There. Now you're perfect again."

Poe laughs, reels her in with a hand on her elbow, waits for her to tilt her head up and kisses her. There's motion out the front of the Falcon, and they do have an audience for this, but that's alright. Poe doesn’t mind a bit.

 

**004.**

The sound of Dagger Squadron taking off overhead makes the ceiling and walls of Poe's quarters rumble, but it's quiet–background noise, and he's used it it by now. Their starting patrols mean that Poe is officially off-duty for the next 36 standard hours, and he's planning on spending as much of it as he can with Rey by his side.

She is, literally, at his side now, tucked up into a little ball between Poe and the wall as he reads through _one_ last holo-report. Of course, he'd promised her that three reports ago, but Rey doesn't seem to mind. Her head rests on Poe's thigh, breath coming in warm puffs that tickle a little, as she plays with his dick.

That's it, really: she's playing with it. He isn't even hard. At first he thought it was a little strange, when she would ease him out of his pants so soon after they'd already gotten off, and he was actually embarrassed trying to explain to her that he, well, he isn't her age. It takes a while. But she just shrugged and said, _I like it. I like in my hand. It's interesting._

So. It's fine.

 _Interesting?_ he'd said, and Rey had laughed. 

_Yeah. Interesting._

Poe’s thinks he’s willing to live with that. Maybe even for the rest of his life.

He reaches down to pet through Rey's hair. "You alright down there?"

Rey gently rolls his foreskin down. "Mm-hmm. Are you nearly done?"

Technically, Poe could add some additional details to the conclusion of his report. But Rey has tilted her face to look up at him, her chin sharp digging into his thigh, her pink mouth slicked from licking at her lips. "Nothing left that can't wait, if you've got a better idea."

Rey shrugs, and the loose neckline of one of Poe's old white t-shirts slips to bare the freckled skin underneath. That shirt is all she's wearing, and if Poe has anything to say about it, all she'll wear for the next day and a half.

Poe thumbs the report closed, slides the datapad into sleep mode and sets it on the nightstand beside Rey's tiny potted cactus, and the holopic of his parents. His free hand slides up Rey's thigh, under the hem of his shirt. Her hips are slowly filling out, and there are pale stretch marks spidering down the tops of her thighs. Poe has spent hours tracing them with his tongue, and it doesn't seem like a bad idea tonight.

"I could–" he offers, hopefully.

Rey hums, then leans forward to touch a light kiss over the head of his cock where she's still got the foreskin pushed back. She licks her lip to taste where sticky residue from earlier rubbed off on her mouth. "D'you think you're, you could...?"

"Yeah," Poe says, immediately, "Come on, c'mere. I wanna taste you." His hand curls on her upper thigh, fingertips touching at the curve of muscle where her ass begins.

"What about..." Rey moves her hand more purposefully, smoothing down the length of Poe once, then twice. He starts to stir in her hand, thickening up. "Hold on, I have an idea."

"I like the sound of that," Poe grins, shifting his hips a little. Her hand is little and warm, fingers rough and purposeful. "You're in charge."

Rey grins and straightens her shoulders at that. "Does that make me a Major, Commander Dameron?"

"Major babe," Poe agrees, then laughs at himself as Rey rolls her eyes.

"It's a good thing you have a nice..." Rey gives him a slow, twisting stroke, her thumb tracing up the vein on the underside of his cock. "Personality, Poe."

"Hey," Poe says, although it's a little low and throaty. "It was a compliment. Be nice."

Rey just smirks at him and keeps working her hand over him, slow and smooth and now that he's half-hard, she leans down to lick his skin so that it's a slicker slide. "I am being nice."

Poe groans, fingers curling around her thigh and squeezing tentatively. "You are, yeah," he says, desperately. "Rey, sweetheart." He'd say he doesn't know where she learned to tease, except he's pretty sure it was from him.

Rey looks up at him, blinking, licks out too intentionally not to be showing off.

Poe drops his head back on a breathless laugh, and it _thunks_ against the wall. He feels, rather than sees, Rey's answering grin, and then her hand starts moving faster.

She shifts next to him, and since his hand is still on her ass anyway, Poe slips his fingers down until he can feel her wet between her legs.

It feels like his lungs can't hold enough air. Poe will never get tired of this.

Rey sighs out right across the head of his cock, hot where her mouth had been wet. "What if we do it at the same time?" she asks, a little breathless.

Poe lifts his head–a mighty endeavor–to look at her. Her eyes are shining, and Poe bites his lip to keep from smiling too wide. "Is that your big idea?"

Rey nods, very serious. "I think it would work, we're the same height. Like–if we both turn on our sides, maybe?"

He nods, solemnly. "I'm up for trying." 

Rey's smile blooms across her entire face. "Great! Let’s." She lets go of him so fast his cock bobbles, grabbing at his thigh instead and tugging at him insistently.

Poe hides his smile in her thigh, next, because she's so excited about her grand idea and he isn't going to burst her bubble by telling her this is probably how humanoids invented numbers higher than 68, hundreds of years ago.

She knees him in the clavicle, kicks his headboard, in the process of getting situated, but those are only brief moments leading up to her mouth on his hip, sucking a love bite into the tender skin over the bone, and her thighs opening around his ears.

She smells good, and Poe gets his hands on her inner thighs, lifts one leg over his shoulder, so he can press his face against her, until all he can smell and taste is her.

"Mmm," Poe murmurs against her skin, the sensitive outside just above her clit. "A sight for sore eyes."

Rey twitches a little, always does under intense gaze whether it's here or her face, naked or clothed, because being looked at like she's something to see is still new. Poe hooks an arm around the leg balanced on his shoulder so he can reach through and open her up with his fingers.

Rey’s fingers trail up his sides, searching out his nipples to rub under her thumbs in retaliation, and it makes him squirm, his hips lift before he realizes they're going to. His cock brushes–her cheek, maybe? soft skin, strands of hair, and he pulls back immediately. "Sorry, sorry." 

Rey just laughs. "Isn't that kind of the point?"

Poe groans, tucking his face down between Rey's legs again. She's still wearing his t-shirt. "Whenever you want, sweetheart."

"I do," she says, and she–might not know the weight of those words, on their own, but she might, and either way, Poe just presses his hips towards her face again, helplessly. 

Her mouth is warm against the side of his cock, and she runs her lips over him, playful and sweet.

"This work?" Poe asks. "Everything you thought it'd be, when you were plotting in your clever little mind?"

"Dunno yet, you haven't made me come," Rey mutters, and then she licks, wet and messy, to get Poe's cock slippery. She mostly sticks to her hand, still, when she does this, because he's big and she started out very, very skeptical about the whole idea back when they were first fooling around, but she's admitted that she does like it. She likes the faces Poe makes, specifically, and he's pretty sure that it's because she likes to laugh at him.

"I'm working on that," Poe frowns, digs his fingers into her thighs and noses the damp skin where leg meets torso and her skin is silky soft. He's angled his face to talk, but she's not having his delays, is slowly grinding against what she can still reach; his chin is slippery with her and when he licks his lips she sighs, presses her hips down harder, chasing his tongue. 

Poe flattens his tongue against her and lets her grind down on his face, and Rey sighs again, louder, closer to pleased than impatient, this time. 

He caresses his hands along her back, holding her close to him so that he can nuzzle with his lips without having to crane his neck and poke her with his chin.

"Getting there," Rey says, thoughtfully, and he can't see her grin, but he can imagine it, down to the dimple in her chin. 

Poe thrusts his own hips once, lightly, and his wet cock slides along her cheek. "I thought you said at the same time, huh?"

Rey turns her face, letting her mouth brush against him down to the base of his cock, nuzzling his stomach. "'Scuse me for trying to enjoy it." Her hand is on his balls without any real warning, fingertips ticklish on his inner thighs. 

Poe's hand gentles as he smooths his palm over the round of her bum. "Are you not enjoying it? Because I'm fine, if you want to just turn over and I can get you."

Rey's teeth graze his thigh, and then she's talking right over the head of his cock, warm breath making him twitch. "No, I like this. I was just trying to tease you, was it not working?" 

Poe grins and bites at the wing of her hipbone. It's just enough that Rey makes a little BB-8 sound and jumps. "You're getting better at it."

She still feels awkward sometimes, not knowing how everyone's sense of humor works on base, and never knowing if her own is funny to anyone else. Usually she can read Poe better than the others, but she can't see his face right now. It's nice knowing she's still not that far off target. "Good."

She leans her head against his thigh and strokes him carefully, fighting the urge to let her eyes slip shut. Half the point of this is that she can watch him up close, without feeling weird about it. 

Poe rumbles low in his chest, appreciative, and stays still for her to keep her hand moving, just watching as she tries to figure out the best way to slide her mouth over any more than just the tip without gagging. This is a good idea, she's sure of it, but the angle of her throat isn't as convinced. 

She's glad that he's content to let her figure things out, always taking her lead even as much as he teases her. And he's teasing now, moving back and forth between light licks over her clit and then setting his teeth back to the crease of her hip, biting and sucking a bruise. (She's always suspected that it has something to do with the old healed white brand on her thigh, courtesy of Unkar Plutt–something about Poe leaving his own, new, better marks, from someone who loves her. She doesn't ask, and he doesn't say, but Rey has lovebites on her hips and bum and the hollow of her pelvis more than she suspects most people on Base do.) 

Rey tries to press her mouth further and ends up coughing, pulling away to take a deep breath. "Sorry. I can't really– is this alright for you?" She feels like she might be getting the better end of the deal. 

For himself, Poe could probably come like this, just with Rey mouthing at what she can reach, but she sounds frustrated. Maybe they can make this better.

Poe has his hands on her hips again, and he's still talking into her hip when he says, "Hang on, this might be easier for you–better angle," and then he's rolling onto his back and pulling her with him so that her cunt is over his face and she's staring down at his dick where it lies against his belly, so hard it's curved away from his skin. "That better?" 

Rey tries it out, holding him loose in one fist as she leans forward to slide her lips around him, tongue flat, and then a little more. She nods with Poe's cock still in her mouth, and he grunts.

She seems satisfied, so Poe resettles his arms around her thighs, pulls her down against his face until her legs loosen up and she relaxes, drops her weight a little. It's better for him this way, too, because it's easy to lick up into her, and all he can do is breathe shallowly and go to work. 

Rey groans, and it vibrates through her tongue and her lips and the silk-soft insides of her cheeks all around him.

For one, two brief strokes, he lets himself thrust into her mouth, chasing the feeling, sliding his own mouth up to her clit and sucking it between his lips, licking over it carefully. He's going to leave new bruises on her thighs and ass from how tight he's holding her. 

Rey finally stops holding her own weight up on her free arm and _melts_ down onto Poe. One hand is still working at the half of him that she can't fit into her mouth, but the other wriggles under his back so that she's hugging him into her, too, every bit of their skin touching where they can.

"Oh, yeah," Poe says, "Sweetheart." It's a mumbled mess, and Rey can only moan her agreement; all Poe can think is how his imagination before they got together had _nothing_ on Rey. She might as well have invented this for all he cares.

She's riding his face so hard that it's hard to breathe. Breathing is overrated.

The important thing is that he gets her off. He presses the tips of two fingers against her, still working his mouth over her clit, and hums.

Rey sucks off him with a wet _pop_ and palms desperately over his head. "Feels different this way."

"Yeah?" Poe asks, more sound than word. He slides his middle finger in to the first knuckle. "Good? Bad?"

Rey shivers, her foot kicking the mattress beside Poe's head. "Like–more. Like I need more." She presses her thumb beneath the ridge of his cockhead, puts her mouth on him again. She can't shake the urge to complain that she doesn't want him just in her _mouth_ , now.

"Okay, just relax," Poe murmurs, and he hitches Rey back a little so that she can just... sit on his face. She can't reach his cock with her mouth anymore, but her hands are always lovely and he has a plan.

"Kriff," she says, loudly, "Poe–" 

Poe would say something, but he's fucking her with his tongue and from the way she's raking her nails down his inner thighs, hips rocking on face, she might kill him if he stops.

His nose and chin are wet. She's squeezing his ears between her strong thighs. Just barely, he can hear the headboard creaking against the wall and the mattress below them is shifting on the flimsy bedframe. Something crashes, a little further away, and Poe has to grin up against Rey's skin.

This happens, sometimes–if he makes her come hard enough, the Force makes the whole room shake just like she is.

She cants her hips, and he can take a hint, presses his tongue up against her clit and sucks at her more firmly. She'll tell him if it's too much. 

Poe is getting light-headed, and Rey's abandoned his cock almost entirely–she's grabbing at his thighs, one hand on the mattress to keep herself upright, and he doesn't even mind.

There's a strange, weightless sensation, like the bed is levitating, but even when Poe opens his eyes all he can see is the long line of Rey's freckled back arching above him.

The drop when she moans and goes stiff above him, pulsing against his tongue, confirms his suspicions, and something rolls off the nightstand with a bump. Poe can't help laughing a little, shallow and dizzy.

Rey's short nails dig into Poe's hips, and then she just... goes boneless, sweet and soft and flopped over to lazily kiss his belly where she's lying against him. Poe shuffles them around enough that he can breathe again before he surveys the damage to his room.

Not too bad, this time. The first time it'd happened–the first time Rey had ever come with another person, Poe can't help but think rather smugly–all of his X-wing models had taken flight and the caddy of lockers tipped over and his desk lamp smashed on the floor, like a Force tornado.

Now that she knows better to expect it, the effect is less striking. Still flattering, Poe thinks, stroking her thigh and feeling her muscles twitch against his fingertips. 

Rey makes a tolerant, lazy sound, her toes curling in the sheets. Poe kisses her hand where it's flung out beside his head.

"Hi," he murmurs.

"Hi," Rey says back. Her eyelashes skitter lightly against the skin of Poe's lower belly as she blinks, sated and sleepy and still wearing Poe's damn t-shirt.

He reaches up, tugs at the hem of it fondly. Something about these moments makes a sentimental old man out of Poe, has him imagining a future that's more than jumpsuits and army bases.

Rey hums, squirming upright again, sitting across Poe's chest. "You didn't get to come."

"Won't take much," Poe laughs. "I can take care of it, Rey."

"Nuh-uh." Rey sounds affronted at the idea. "I want to, unless you don't?"

Poe runs his fingers around her wrist, over her rough palm, between her fingers. "I always want you," he says.

Rey turns and smiles down at Poe over her shoulder, the shoulder that's bared from the neckline of the old threadbare shirt, and Poe's heart hurts with how stunningly beautiful she is.

"You're in luck, then." Rey squeezes his fingers. 

Poe shakes his head, wryly, because isn't _that_ the truth.

Rey scoots forward, drags against him, and there's wet all down Poe's belly and he has to bite his lip.

"Didn't do a good enough job of cleaning you up," he says. "Think I better go back and finish it later."

Rey twitches at that, and he can _feel_ it where she's straddling him. "Gotta get you first." She wraps her hand around him again, gives it a few gentle strokes back up to full hardness before she lifts herself up and starts to seat herself down on him, still facing his feet. Poe props himself up on both elbows to watch the graceful curve of her spine. 

"We have all night," he says softly.

"And all day," Rey answers, cheeky even though she sounds exhausted already. "And another night."

"And more than that, if you want." Poe tucks his hands under the t-shirt and presses one palm over her lower stomach. The other just strokes at her soft skin.

She shudders, around him and against him, and Poe can feel the echo of it caught between their thoughts, too. Even the air seems to ripple as she works her hips, taking him until there's nothing left, and her chin drops to her chest. 

"I want it all," she says.

Poe sits up, pulls her back against his chest, tucks a kiss to the place where her neck becomes her shoulder. "Me, too."

She huffs, twisting her neck to kiss his face, and shifts in his lap. Tugging his hand down between her legs, she guides his fingers against where she's still slick and messy. It feels good, but she doesn't think she'll come again; this is for his sake, now. Their tangled fingertips bump his cock as she rises on her knees, slide in her wet when she sinks back down.

"Is it too much?" Poe asks into her hair. "I really can take care of myself, you know. I have hands."

"I definitely know you have hands," Rey laughs. "It's not too much."

"I don't want to hurt you," Poe mutters, kisses the shell of her ear through strands of hair. 

Rey snorts. "I'd tell you. This is–good, Poe."

Poe nods, and relaxes, and trusts her. She'd tell him if it were too much, or if she wanted to try something new, or if it hurt. Rey wasn't the type to do something she didn't want–even for Poe.

Rey arches her back and rests her head against his shoulder, her nose bumping his throat. "Do I need to tell you?" she asks. 

"What?" Poe's free hand clenches instinctively on her waist, ready to–he's not sure what, but whatever he needs to, if she's giving him directions.

Rey's mouth is warm when she rests it against his pulse. "How good you feel like this."

"Oh," Poe says, swallowing. "I mean, positive reinForcement never hurt."

Rey giggles, rocking and circling more than bouncing or even fucking, really. Just keeping up a rhythm with Poe inside her, enjoying it.

It's an accident, Poe not even thinking, when the tip of his finger catches against her cunt, where she's sinking back on his cock on a down-thrust. His impulse to pull away is muddled by her hand around his wrist, keeping his in place, and the noise she makes against his neck, hips still pressing down.

Poe wants to say–something, but can't think of words. His entire brain is a cushy white blank, and he has to bury his face into Rey's hair before he does something horribly embarrassing, like squeak or make a wookiee noise or... die.

Rey exhales a slow, quiet breath, her knees shifting either side of his thighs, and slowly settles down into his lap. She's so wet Poe doesn't even have to move his finger, it just sinks in alongside his cock. "Fuck," she says, perfectly enunciated against his ear.

"You're gonna kill me," Poe grits out, breathing hot into her hair. "Where'd you–this wasn't even _my_ imagination– _fuck_."

"I saw it in a holo-porn," Rey says, still in that eerily clear, high voice. "In the holo it was the other man's fingers, but it's just the two of us, so."

"Fucking _Force_ , Rey, is that what you get up to when I'm in meetings?" Poe wraps his other arm around her ribs just to keep her close, and he feels... wild. Like he's trying to absorb her into his own skin, like he could eat her.

Rey hums, and rocks her hips speculatively, clenches down on his cock and finger. "I do lots of things when you're in meetings," she says. "But sometimes I think about this, yeah."

"Me, too," Poe admits. He has to keep his face hidden. "A lot."

"Not this, though," Rey sounds particularly pleased with herself. "Maybe you should share one of your secret ones now, make it even."

Poe makes a strangled noise. "You expect me to _think_ right now?" He drops his forehead to the soft cotton covering her shoulder. "Unfair."

Rey kisses the side of his head, rocks in his lap almost gently. "Later, then."

Poe nods and carefully, carefully slides his finger away so he can angle her hips and get the leverage he wants to open up and _fuck_ , fast and desperate and he's been hard and exhausted, both, for so long now that he feels a little delirious.

She whines when he pulls his finger free, and then again, louder, when he begins to move, beginning to meet him halfway at every thrust. She reaches up and threads her hand in his hair, tugging hard, arches her back to take him deep when he pulls her down in his lap, all the little things she can think of that he likes when he's needy.

Poe muffles his curse in her neck when he does come, and it's the second time in a night so it's not much but he still _feels_ it, a sharp shudder all up his spine that makes his nerves all stand at attention.

Rey's hand in his hair goes soft and comforting immediately, scratching through the shaved-short hair at his nape like she does when he's half-asleep in the mornings. She makes an appreciative noise, muscles fluttering around him through the aftershocks.

Poe snuffles sleepily and drizzles kisses along whatever part of her he can reach; her shoulder, her neck. "You need anything?"

Rey shakes her head and twists further so she can kiss the side of his eye. "I'm good. Thirsty. But good."

"Good." Poe keeps nuzzling at her. "'m spent."

"I can tell." She stretches, lifting off of him carefully, and crawls up the bed, sinks down on her stomach and gestures for him with one hand. "Kiss me, flyboy."

Poe flops backward and lands with his head just off-kilter of the pillow. Rey giggles again, watching him, and Poe peers at her with one open eye. 

"You're something else," he says, and Rey scuttles closer to kiss him.

She doesn't disagree. "Don't think I've forgotten that you owe me," she says, between nibbling at his lower lip and soothing it over with her tongue.

Poe groans and rolls over, pinning her down against the mattress with all of his sleepy, heavy weight. "In the morning," he mutters. "After food. Need energy. Need rest. I'm weak. I'm old." 

"You need energy just to _talk_ about sex?" Rey wrinkles her nose. "You _are_ old." 

Poe sighs heavily, and she kisses his shoulder. "Alright. In the morning, then, Commander."

Poe can't keep his eyes open, but he can kiss her, even if his aim is bad and he gets a mouthful of hair. "Yes ma'am, major."

“Goodnight, Poe.”

"Good night," Poe murmurs, and tucks his face against her shoulder.

Everything is quiet and still, the room dark and peaceful, if still a mess and scented with sex. Everything is warm skin and soft breaths and two hearts beating together.

Then Rey wriggles. "Poe? You're squishing me."

 

**005.**

Poe takes it as a tacit sign of his approval when Luke tells Rey to see whether Poe might like to show her the Force tree on Yavin 4. Rey loves to tend plants–has little potted friends all around their room, and she's got dirt on her nose more often than not anymore–and Luke assigns her the sacred task of bringing a cutting of the tree home to D'Qar, to start sowing more seeds of the Force all around the galaxy again, like in the old days. Before the Purge. Before the Clone Wars. 

Before the Skywalkers, honestly.

Kes is thrilled with the idea and immediately clears his schedule to start cooking.

Poe’s introduced him to Rey via holo-comm–Poe calls twice a week, when he can, and Kes had asked about the potted flowers in the window the day Rey put them there. 

Kes Dameron is two inches shorter than his son, so his nose presses into Rey’s shoulder when he hugs her hello. He has the same wrinkles around his eyes as Poe when he smiles, if more pronounced with age. Casual contact still catches Rey off-guard, sometimes, and she appreciates the fact that Kes’ gesture, while warm, is brief, not overbearing. He hugs Poe again, instead, and her stomach clenches. There are things she hadn’t known to be jealous of. 

Kes shows them around the ranch house, pointing out renovations he’s made in Poe’s absence, helping stow their few bags in a guest room. Rey showers while Poe helps with dinner, and the three of them eat in the kitchen, as the waning light turns warm through the windows. Kes makes them tea as Poe does the dishes, and Rey sits up with them a while, listening. They have two years’ worth to talk about, and that’s before they get to any details she can help Poe fill in for Kes.

She excuses herself, as Kes begins to tell Poe about the family that bought the next property over, after a third yawn in a row that she can no longer hide behind the rim of her mug. Poe catches her hand, as she stands, giving her fingers a gentle squeeze, and she nods. He’ll follow her soon enough.

Rey has only just changed into her sleep clothes and brushed her teeth, is pulling the blankets back on the low bed under the double skylights, when Poe opens the door, shuts it quietly behind himself. “Sorry,” he says. “I know that was a lot.”

Rey curls around her knees, on the far side of the mattress, and nods. The exhaustion is creeping in again. A long flight and the pressure of meeting a new face, sharing an intimacy she hasn’t earned, twist up uncomfortably in her gut. She needs time to refocus. Poe seems to sense it, takes longer in the shower than he usually does, and brushes his teeth twice as long as he did that morning before they left. By the time he comes out of the fresher, and the zipper of his satchel snaps Rey out of her meditation, her eyes opening to his naked back before he pulls a sleep shirt over his shoulders, she feels like she can breathe easier. 

"Are you feeling better?" Poe asks when he turns around. He smiles at Rey as BB-8 beeps around the room, examining items and snooping curiously.

"Better," Rey agrees, and holds out her hand, beckoning. "Come to bed?"

Across the room, BB-8 makes a discovery and trills happily, removing a holo-picture from a low shelf and wheeling it over to the bed, where Poe's just sat down beside Rey.

[Friend-Poe! Is this us?]

"Of course it is, buddy!" Poe says, taking the frame to show to Rey. A very small Poe–Beebee-Ate sized, to be exact–has skinny twig-arms thrown around a brand-new droid and two missing teeth. He grins at the photo, at the memory, and lets Rey take a long look.

Rey takes the frame, and curls her fingers around it. Poe has wild curls, in the holo, tucked behind both ears. BB-8 is white and grey, and Poe laughs. "The custom paint job came after." 

BB-8 has plugged into the port across the room, is humming to itself. 

"I can't imagine Beebee-Ate another color," Rey says, leaning into Poe's shoulder.

"Me, either, now." Poe wraps his arm around her shoulders. "But it's been a few. I went through a rainbow phase."

Rey laughs softly and turns to tuck her face into the just-washed warm smell between Poe's rib and arm. It's a safe place, one she knows well.

Poe reaches up into her hair, curls a strand around his finger and tugs it gently. "Thank you for coming."

"I wasn't going to miss out on some cool Force tree," Rey says, poking at his ribs. She tucks her face deeper into his armpit. "I wanted to come. I only know you and Luke and Finn, really, so you're the only person I know who has like... a family. A real one, with parents. And a house that you grew up in. I wanted to see."

"I wanted you to see it," Poe admits, leaning his head against hers. "I wanted–I want this to be yours, too, if you want it." It's too big, too much to offer when they're both this tired, curled around each other in a child's bed, but Poe doesn't know how else to do it.

Rey untucks her face and looks up at Poe, the underside of his jaw where he's dark and shadowed at the end of the day, prickly if she rubs her skin across his. She doesn't know how to answer this late, too, this overwhelmed and tired and doesn't know how to speak words to what she felt when she saw the smaller baby version of Poe clutching his new droid.

So instead, she just kisses his sharp jaw.

"I'm tired," she says. "And I ate enough food for half the Base. Let's sleep."

Poe nods, helps settle them both under the coverlet, turns over so that Rey can fold up against his back, wrap her skinny arm around his chest. 

"I'm sorry," he says, when their breathing has quietened to the same steady beat. "We don't have to talk about it. But I'm sorry if that made you uncomfortable."

"It didn't," she says quickly. "Just... all I've ever wanted was a family. It's a lot to get offered everything you want all at once." She kisses behind his ear. "And I really am tired, and really did eat too much. We should bring your dad back to be the new Base chef."

Poe laughs. "He'd never leave this place." Kes Dameron has done his time. Poe doesn't want to think too hard about his father living in a resistance camp. He presses his ankle back to fit between Rey's cold calves. "I was serious, though. Whenever you want to talk about it. I'm a patient guy."

He feels Rey's smile curve against his shoulder. "Thank you."

Neither of them talks anymore, although Poe doesn't fall asleep quickly, either. It's so quiet here, without starfighters taking off overhead or the barely-muffled sounds through the door of people running past in their heavy boots. There's no chance of a sudden All-Points alarm to rouse Poe to Black One or send Rey flying for her lightsaber. There's peace here. 

It's strange.

There hasn't been peace in a long time. As long as he's known Rey.

In the morning, his dad makes caf the same way he did when Poe left for naval academy. The same way he did when Poe's mom was alive. (Kes never made caf for less than two people, even after Shara died, and before Poe started drinking it.) Poe leaves Rey tying up her hair and stumbles downstairs, pours himself a cup in a chipped mug. Kes is in the garden, weeding, and Poe sets his cup beside his dad's on the flagstones, kneels by him and gets his hands in the dirt until Rey comes downstairs, and Kes decides they've done enough before breakfast.

Rey wants to know the name of every plant Kes has arranged in the front of the house, so after they’ve eaten, Poe washes up while his dad walks her through his raised beds, names off each flower and vegetable. He watches the two of them out the window; Rey’s curious excitement when she encounters something she doesn’t recognize, Kes’ patient smiles as he answers her endless stream of questions. 

BB-8 clunks down the stairs heavily, tootling good morning and bumping the back of Poe’s knees affectionately. “Hey, buddy,” Poe says, gives BB-8 a pat on the dome. “You ready for some exploring today?” 

[Beebee-Ate is always up for adventure!]

“I was thinking we could take a picnic with us, hike up to the old temple, how’s that sound?”

BB-8’s responding purr is practically coy. [That sounds very romantic, Friend-Poe. Friend-Rey should enjoy it greatly.]

Poe smiles at Beebee, eye-level away because Poe always kneels for his friend. "That's what I thought, too. Do you think you could download any interesting information about the Massassi ruins to help me out, if I'm a bad tour guide?"

BB-8 lifts itself up solemnly. [It will be my honor, Friend-Poe.]

Rey has a firelily tucked behind her ear when she and Kes come back into the kitchen, both of them scraping mud from the bottoms of their boots at the door.

Kes says his bones are too old for the hike into the jungle, so while BB-8 plots their course, projected over the kitchen table, he packs them a small bag for lunch.

Poe tries to keep his fingers out of Rey's hair, but it doesn't mean he can't look, can't _stare_.

Rey asks about the cooking, too, pointing out the different vegetables and fruits she'd seen in the gardens outside as Kes chops them, seasons, tells her about the different uses and the way Yavin 4 foods are different from those on other planets he's lived on because of the way the big gas giant affects the atmo. 

"See this?" he asks, opening his palm to show her a handful of bright yellow buds. "Doesn't grow anywhere else in the galaxy, even in hydropods. It needs the ozone we have here."

"Can I try it?" 

Poe doesn't have time to stop her before Rey pops a little flower in her mouth and crunches down, immediately cringing away from the intense burst of bitterness.

"Oh," she says, "oh, ugh, what _is_ that, that's _awful_." 

Kes is trying not to laugh as he pours her a glass of creamy milk, and he and Poe share a sympathetic glance past her shoulder.

"You have to cook that one," Poe explains. BB-8 is wheeling in nervous circles around Rey's feet as she chugs the blue milk, and it's beeping anxiously more than is warranted, so Rey reaches down blindly to pet its dome. "It's actually pretty good then. If you can believe that."

"I don't know that I do," Rey croaks. 

Kes grins at her as he takes back the glass. He chops up the starchipilin flowers anyway, deft movements of a knife against the stone cutting board. "Well, you'll have to let me know what you think."

Rey grimaces, swallowing hard. Poe watches her catch herself from saying something; probably more disbelief at the fact anything that tastes that bitter raw could be better cooked, but she doesn't want to hurt his dad's feelings. He realizes that she's projecting the feeling, and steps into her space, rubs at her arm to focus her attention again. "I know, I'd never have believed it if I hadn't seen what he can do with 'em myself."

Rey heads into the fresher while the food cooks, so Poe leans back against the countertop to watch Kes finish cooking. BB-8 explores the kitchen, beeping contentedly as it peeks into cabinets and looks over the shelves.

"So," Kes says. "Leia actually gave you leave? Must be a special reason."

"No." Poe watches a bubbling saucepan. "I'm just her favorite."

"I know _that_ ," Kes laughs. "You're Shara Bey's son. But Leia doesn't give people free leave, even her favorites." 

Poe shoves his hands into his pockets. "Luke wants us to bring cuttings of the tree back to base." 

Kes looks up sharply at that, his smile stilling. 

"The tree'll be fine, dad," Poe says.

Kes takes a deep breath and looks out the window, towards the filtered blue-green light that shines through the Force tree's leaves, before he exhales. "I trust you. It's just hard to believe it's all starting again. I knew he'd come back, but..."

"I know," Poe says. He pauses. "He remembers Ma."

"Like anyone could forget her." Kes' left hand is clenched on the counter, even as he stirs the pan with the other.

"It's gonna be good," Poe says, and he's surprised to find that he actually believes it. "I think peace'll stick this time, when it comes. For a while, at least. Luke's good, but... Rey is better. She's not going to make his mistakes."

Kes looks over his shoulder at Poe. "That's good. I like her."

"Yeah?" Poe is pleased, and maybe it's being in this kitchen, but he feels a little like when he was a kid looking for his dad's approval on an X-wing drawing.

" _You_ like her," Kes says wryly. "You didn't bring her because she's a jedi." 

Poe flushes, smoothes his hands down the thighs of his pants. "I wanted you to meet her.”

Kes looks mildly amused. "Has the jedi code changed since Luke?"

Poe scratches the back of his neck and looks nonchalantly toward where BB-8's bottom sphere is poking out of the seasonings cabinet, wriggling and silly. "Well, his dad failed pretty spectacularly, and then, you know, Rey's existence is proof that Luke failed, so, yeah. He just did away with the damn thing."

"I never cared for calling it a failing." Poe's father shifts the saucepan to the back of the stove, takes another pot from a shelf above the counter, sets it on the warm eye. "Caring about another person shouldn't be a weakness."

"Yeah, that's pretty much what Luke's new stance is," Poe agrees. "Makes sense to me. But what do I know? I was raised by a couple of softies who were grossly in love."

"And so are you," says Kes, and he takes the saucepan off the heat. "It's written all over your face."

Poe groans. "Dad." 

BB-8 rolls across the kitchen tiles to tilt its eye up at Kes. [Designation: Dad is so funny! His sense of humor is like yours!]

"Thank you, Beebee-Ate," Kes says. "You always were my favorite child."

BB-8 preens, spinning in a gloating circle just to show off.

Rey's footsteps come down the stairs ahead of her, off-beat, like she's skipping steps, and Poe gives his father a pleading glance. Kes raises his hands placatingly. 

[Are we keeping secrets?] BB-8 cocks its dome.

"Yes." Poe looks down at BB-8. "This conversation was classified."

[Classified!] Beebee beeps, sounding surprised. [You did not ask me to secure this location, Friend-Poe!]

Poe sighs, and it's down to years of shared experience that has BB-8 resigning itself to a roll of its lens and a grumpy blurting noise.

"Hey," says Kes, looking down at the little droid. "Language."

"That Artoo," Rey says, bounding up beside BB-8 and kneeling down to fiddle with its antenna. "Such a bad influence."

"Ugh, tell me about it." Kes returns to packing up the last of the food before he turns to Rey, holding out the old, battered picnic basket. "When Poe was a little one and the Skywalker-Organa-Solos would visit, that asshole astromech got Poe and B–the kids all swearing up a storm, just to be funny."

Poe's face does something funny, between amused and pained. R2 wasn't the only bad influence on board the Falcon when Poe was a kid. "Alright, alright, story time's over. If we don't leave soon we won't have enough light to make it back."

"Fun fun, kids," Kes calls over his shoulder. He's already got his hands in soapy water. "Poe, don't do anything I wouldn't do. Beebee-Ate, keep an eye on him. Rey, you seem like you have a good head on your shoulders; do whatever you want. I trust you."

Rey beams, and gives him a little two-fingered salute as they trail out the back door. Poe gives his dad a hug around the shoulders and picks up the picnic satchel. BB-8 leads the way out past the garden and across the field towards the dense trees.

"So what is this place you're showing me?" Rey asks. Poe lets her slip her arm into his, their elbows crooked together as they walk.

[Designation: The Great Temple, also known as Designation: Massassi Ruins, is the site of the Rebel Alliance's strategic meetings to attack and dismantle Designation: Death Star], BB-8 burbles with great importance. [Many thousands of years ago it was a shrine to a Sith Lord.]

"You're taking me to a Sith temple?"

Poe looks at her, shrugging. "It isn't anymore. Now it's just pretty."

Rey gives him an unimpressed look. "The Sith built something _pretty_?" 

Poe slides his hand down her arm, tentatively twines their fingers together. It's easier when one of them can walk in front, now that they're encountering heavier underbrush along the path. As much as he likes walking with Rey tucked against his side, he likes her tugging him along by the hand, too.

[The stonework has been praised by multiple architectural journals from Coruscant], BB-8 confirms. It rolls along ahead with a little hedge-trimmer attachment chopping the worst of the vines and nettles away. [The sheer mass of the edifice suggests the need for modern gravitonic construction techniques, but this is historically impossible and reputable conclusions hold for hand-construction methods.]

"Thank you, Beebee-Ate," Rey says, in that voice that everyone uses when one of the droids was, technically, helpful. "That explains everything."

"My mom used to bring me out here all the time," Poe says. "When I was a kid, I thought the temple was the coolest thing in the galaxy. If you don't like it, we don't have to stay. I just wanted to show you."

Rey smiles back at him over her shoulder. "I'll give it a try. If you like it, it must be okay."

"See?" Poe says. "I've never steered you wrong before."

[Me, either], chirps Beebee. [My headings are accurate within 99.999998%. I never steer anyone wrong, because I am the best droid in the galaxy!]

"You are the very best droid in the galaxy," Rey confirms, and squeezes Poe's hand. "Tell me more about the temple, Beebee." 

BB-8 trills happily, and launches into the earliest records found on the Massassi Ruins. 

By the time they get to the ruins, Rey and Poe have as many dates and names about the temple rattling around in their heads as BB-8 has in its databanks.

Poe watches Rey's face as they come out of the undercover into the clearing in front of the temple, her face splintered in the soft sunlight.

The ruins are indeed a massive, hulking thing, a pyramid made of monolithic stairs not unlike the other temple Rey has seen, the one on Ahch-To, which she had R2 send a holo-image of to BB-8 to share with Poe. But the Massassi ruins are, as all things Sith, a more obscene scale than the Jedi ruins. The highest towers clear the tree-line easily, and whisper birds sing from gaps in the stone.

Poe watches Rey eye the weathered Sith iconography warily, like it might come to life.

"You wanna eat first or explore?" Poe lets his hand linger at Rey's hip.

"Eat," Rey says. "So that if those flowers are still terrible, I have time to come up with a way to be nice about it."

"You're gonna break my dad's heart," Poe laughs. 

BB-8 rolls around the open floor of the glade as Poe sets out the food they've brought and Rey sips from the canteen, looking around them.

"It is pretty here," Rey says. "Was this where your mom flew with you?"

"Yeah," Poe says. "We'd just circle a few times, usually, and head back home. I was really little."

"How old were you?" Rey's trying to picture it.

"Until I was eight," Poe says. "So about... Beebee-Ate size? We started going up together when I was six. I had two years with her teaching me, and then I just tinkered by myself for about four and... then the Academy and it's all history." 

"It's weird imagining you little," Rey says, her nose wrinkling. But she's smiling at him, her eyes soft. "And it's weird imagining you old, too, but you look just like your dad so I do keep picturing it. You with a beard and more gray hairs."

"Hey," Poe says. "If I'm getting gray hairs, they're from dealing with you."

"You had them when we met," Rey laughs. "I thought they were pretty."

Poe runs a hand through his hair as though the pale strands that pepper through his dark curls will feel different, even though he knows they don't and it doesn't actually bother him to be going gray young; Kes did, too. Shara never got the chance.

"You aren't as gray as the General," Rey points out, like she's afraid she's hurt his feelings.

"I don't mind," Poe says. "I think I rock it, you know? Gives me an air of distinction." 

Rey raises an eyebrow doubtfully.

Poe mugs at her as he sets out the last of the food and gestures toward the blanket. "We'll see how you look with gray hair. One of these days."

"Years and years from now!" Rey laughs. "I'll probably look like Leia. Just taller."

Kriff, Poe wants to see that. "You'll be beautiful," he says, clearing his throat. "Here, let's eat." 

Rey kindly lets it be, kneels next to him in the soft grass, smooths her hands clean on her trousers before reaching for food.

It's quiet here, other than the yelling of woollamanders through the trees and the soft wing-swoops of whisper birds. BB-8 noses around, burbling information excitedly whenever it decodes a glyph or sees a new landmark that its databanks recognize.

"Can you feel the Sith here?" Poe asks curiously, halfway through the güicoyitos rellenos, as Rey peels her food apart to eat one ingredient at a time so she can learn every flavor on its own. (She always does this, even though other people on Base wrinkle their noses over it. Poe thinks it's charming. But Poe is also in love.) "Like, do–it doesn't feel bad, to be here, does it? Through the Force?"

Rey shakes her head. "It doesn't feel bad. I don't want to go inside the temple, but it's been so long that I mostly feel the nature itself. And echoes of the Rebel Alliance's joy."

"The celebrations went on for days," Poe remembers his mother telling him. It was one of the few things she would share about the war when he was little. He licks his fingers, starts peeling a fruit to share with Rey. "Luke and Han and Leia, they were all here, and my mom and dad."

Rey smiles and her fingers are a little sticky as she takes her half of the bloomfruit. "I can tell. Chewie, too. I think this is where he hooked up with Maz, but I'm not gonna delve too deep into that."

Poe grimaces. "Yeah, some things are better left. They weren't the only ones, anyway, half my class at the academy were celebration babies."

Rey's eyes light up, half from the taste of the bloomfruit leaving juice all down her chin and half from–"Yeah, I can feel that, too. That's definitely a part of the Force signature here."

"It is not," Poe laughs. "You just want to have sex."

"It might be, but you're not entirely wrong." Rey sucks bright purple juice from her thumb, staining her lips.

"You're too much," Poe laughs, looks away from her fingers in her mouth. "What would we tell Beebee-Ate? 'Oh, hey, buddy, why don't you explore the Sith temple alone while we... hang out... here.'"

"I don't think it would mind," Rey says. "It could learn all sorts of facts and tell them to the Force ghosts."

"No Force ghosts messing with my Beebee-Ate," Poe says fiercely. "You tell them to leave it alone."

Rey rolls her eyes and steals a bit of saucy chicken from Poe's plate with her fingers. He doesn't mention that the chicken she's inhaled most of is what the bitter flowers went into–he'll let Kes crow about that later.

"I don't think they would hurt Beebee," she says. "Any spirits here are just reliving their celebrations. Like I said. Sexy Force ghosts." She wiggles her eyebrows.

Poe wipes sauce off her chin. “Please never say that again.”

"What, attracted to Yoda, you are not?"

It's Poe's turn to roll his eyes as he catches her hand before she can steal the last of his little cakes. He nibbles her fingers instead, sucking two into his mouth for a moment to divest them of the sticky-sweet remnants of bloomfruit. Rey's eyes go dark and pretty.

Poe releases her hand and then sits back, resting his hands behind him so he can turn his face up to the striped glow of the sun's rays peering through the gas clouds off Yavin Prime. "No. Attracted to Yoda, I am not. And now I'll never get a boner again, thanks."

"Never?" Rey scoots closer to him, putting her hand on his knee and drawing it up the inseam of his pants slowly. "That's a shame." 

Poe closes his eyes, basking in the warmth on his face and the heat of her palm through his trousers. He can still taste the sweetness of the bloomfruit when he licks his lips.

"Nope," he says. His voice betrays him. "You can rest easier knowing that we're going to live the celibate life of the Jedi. Tell the Force ghosts _that_."

Rey's weight is warm and welcome when she settles onto his lap to curl up against his chest, her mouth soft over the thrumming vein in Poe's neck. "It doesn't have to be celibate. I like your fingers and your tongue, too."

Poe still doesn't move, too content with the hot sun and smell of the trees and the feeling of Rey secure against him. "That's true."

"It's a shame about the kids, though," Rey ponders. "I think your dad would love grandchildren."

Poe's heart squeezes.

At this, he does tilt his head back down to look at Rey, open his eyes to blink against the bright sunstreaks. The breeze through the trees is too loud, but it's the only noise, as though even the raucous woollamanders are listening.

Rey shrugs. "We can always adopt." She looks up at Poe, her mouth quirking. Her confidence is quieter, now, less playful. "If that's something you want, obviously."

"If that's what you want," Poe manages, because he doesn't know how to say all of the things that he wants from her, for her, for their lives. They're just on leave in the middle of a war; he's a pilot and he can't make promises, but he _wants_.

"Your parents didn't wait," Rey says, which isn't an answer, but a question, and a bigger one, at that.

Poe's mouth feels dry, like he's been running. He swallows, presses his tongue against the roof of his mouth to try to shore up enough saliva to even say words without squeaking like he's still some Academy cadet with zits and a holo of Leia under his mattress. 

"That's..." Poe licks his lip and studies Rey's face. She's serious. "That's true. But they thought it was over."

"Did they?" Rey looks past him, around their surroundings. "You weren't a... celebration baby."

Poe shakes his head and wraps his arms around Rey's waist. She's so little in his arms. "Nope. I was born halfway between the two Death Stars. I was actually at the medal ceremony after Endor, but all I remember is that Chewbacca seemed huge and loud."

"Chewie _is_ huge and loud," Rey laughs.

[Loud-Fur is very scary], BB-8 agrees from where it's been rolling through a patch of flowers, picking a few in its pinchers.

"So they had to have known," Rey says, and Poe shifts uneasily, watching BB-8 out of his peripheral vision. It's not particularly a conversation he wants to explain to the droid, but Rey doesn't seem to have picked up on his hesitation. "That there was more to come, that they'd have to keep fighting–anyway, is anything ever really over? Isn't that what the General and Master Luke have taught us, that we're never guaranteed a peace, that we'll have to _keep on_ fighting for it?"

That is the only life they've ever known, Poe and Rey and Finn and Snap and Jessika and everyone in their generation even B–Kylo Ren and his Knights, even horrible General Hux, they've all just been living in this suspended stasis of finishing up the business of their parents.

But it's not all bad. Without the war, Poe never would have found Rey. Maybe no one would have, and she would still be stuck on Jakku.

Rey smooths her hands over Poe's temples, her fingers tucking into his hair. "And anyway, I'm impatient."

"Rey," Poe says, helplessly. He looks over at BB-8, again, who's examining some rocks as if it has realized that they're having a Conversation, and Rey follows his gaze. 

She kisses his cheek. "We can talk about it later?"

"Yeah," Poe promises. He feels suddenly like he should make sure that she knows–that she doesn't think he's trying to put off the conversation because he doesn't want to have it. "Rey," he says, quietly, and turns his face into her palm. "I like when you're impatient."

Rey grins at him with all of her teeth. They're stained a little purple from the bloomfruit, and she looks ridiculous, and Poe could not be more in love with her if he tried. "I know."

Then she jumps up in a fluid motion and holds out her hand to help Poe to his feet. "Now. Show me what's so great about this architecture."

"Beebee-Ate, give us a tour," Poe agrees, and keeps his fingers laced with hers.

*** * ***

BB-8 is still talking about how incredible it was to see the ruins again, and how its going to transmit some of its observation data to R2 via comma as soon as its recovered battery charge, when they make their way back out of the dense tree-line and come into view of the Damerons' house again.

The light is gone, and BB-8 has lead the way with a spotlight to guide them, but in the open field the lights above are visible. Rey stops to look up, and Poe wraps an arm around her waist, looking too.

"That's beautiful," Rey murmurs, pointing up at the flowing stripes of green and purple and neon-burn pink that criss-cross the sky above the Damerons' landing pad. "I've never seen a sky like that before."

"Really?" Poe asks. He kisses the side of her head and they both tilt their faces skyward. "It's pretty common on the moons of gas giants. But I think this one's the best."

"Of course you do," Rey says, and her voice is soft and fond. "This is a good place."

"Not bad when you're here to share it," Poe agrees. "Pretty swell in general, although the summers are wet, rainy as hell." 

"I like rain," Rey murmurs.

"Yeah." Poe knows. 

Rey touches her fingertips to Poe's cheek, turning his face so that she can kiss him.

[How are we to make any progress towards our objective when the two of you stop to kiss every five parsecs?] BB-8's dome rolls dangerously on its body.

"You can go on ahead and charge, Beebee," Poe says, smiling at the little antsy wobbling of the droid. "Rey and I need to talk, anyway. We'd just keep you awake."

[I understand what phrase: to talk implies in such contexts!] BB-8 beeps at them. [I am happy to remove myself, Friend-Poe.]

Rey stifles her laughter in Poe's shoulder as Poe frowns mightily at the little tootling droid. It burbles a cheery [good-night, Friend-Rey!] and then starts the slow process of hoisting itself up the back steps of the Damerons' porch.

"We need to be more careful around it," Poe grumps. "I don't want it thinking about us like that."

"Beebee isn't a little kid," Rey reminds him, gently. "Not anymore, anyway. Beebee-Ate grew up the same as you did."

Poe frowns even more at that, as he always does whenever anyone points this out. But BB-8 is a child of war the same as Poe is, has fought in every battle at his side, and deep down Poe knows it.

"Still," he says. "I don't particularly want anyone thinking of us like that, to be honest. It's hard enough to keep anything private on Base." He folds both of his arms around Rey, hauling her in close so he can draw his nose along the side of hers, slow and gentle as he stares into her eyes. His lips brush hers when he adds, "And I want to keep you all to myself."

Rey exhales, warm against his mouth, her lips pursing as she tries not to smile too widely. "You have me. You don't have to worry about that, you know." Her hands are creeping along his waistband, tugging his shirt free and tucking her thumbs under to touch warm skin. "Anyway, would it be so bad if they knew? If they saw how much I want you?" She kisses him, and paints the ideas across the space between them: the two of them in a supply room back on base, faceless pilots passing in the hall and hearing Rey shout, Poe pressing her against the nose of Black One in the hangar, having to be quick before Jess comes back.

"That second one happened three days ago," Poe murmurs. Rey's fingertips are dancing along the line of his waist band, just barely tucking beneath the elastic on his underwear. 

"Mm-hmm, I remember. I liked it," Rey whispers. "Poe... it's so beautiful out here."

"You don't have to convince me," Poe grins even as he's shaking his head, slides his hand from the small of her back down to her ass.

Rey unzips the front of his dark denim civvies and reaches in to palm him through soft cotton. He isn't hard yet, but it won't take long, not with that look in her eye.

"Not–right here," Poe hedges, though, and takes her other hand. "My old neighbors are nosy. I have an idea, come on."

Rey huffs impatiently, her fingers squeezing him before she lets go and slides her hand free. "Alright, where?"

Poe just smiles, mysterious and sparkle-eyed, and leads her further across the clearing. There's a whistling whisper on the air here, and Poe feels it through Rey's hand when the power of the Force tree puts a tremor through her where it reaches out across the grassy space, its branches wide and dark in the nighttime and sturdy as time.

Rey reaches out to touch it, leaves then branch then bark, reverential. When Poe looks over at her, her eyes are closed, lips parted slightly. "It remembers your mother," Rey says, softly. "Oh, Poe."

Poe blinks a few times, not sure how to process that. Once Rey takes her cutting and they start to spread the tree around the galaxy, she'll be everywhere.

His dad will love that. 

Rey opens her eyes slowly, blinking, and Poe watches as her pupils adjust to the hazy light of the borealis above them again. "Sorry, I just–so many memories."

Poe runs his hand along her cheek, warm under his hand like she's blushing. "You wanna give it another one?"

Rey only pauses for a nanosecond, before her smile cracks wide open. "Yeah."

Poe tries to contain his answering grin by biting down on his lip, but he can't do it, his eyes shining as he cups Rey's face in his hands and then they're kissing again, deep and sweet.

Rey walks them backwards until her back hits the trunk of the tree, and she widens her stance so that Poe can step between her legs. His pants are still open, but she only flattens her hand in the open space of his fly, this time, a sweet counterpoint to their kiss.

Poe tucks his fingers around her head so that her fine hair doesn't tangle in the rough bark of the tree's massive trunk. "Comfortable?"

Rey nods, and she looks... serene, flush-faced and eager, but rooted and calm like she always does when she's got the Force tethered to her hands. "Really good."

“You look incredible,” Poe says, words bubbling out. “Just, so beautiful tonight, Rey.” He kisses her mouth, and then her throat, the soft curve of her neck where it meets shoulder. He can’t reach her chest without bending awkwardly, so he starts his way back up instead, pausing at her jaw to suck a love bite halfway back towards her ear.

"I think Yavin 4 agrees with me," Rey murmurs back, her hands slowly dragging up Poe's back to pull his shirt away from his skin. "The air here, the sun... I feel beautiful."

"We should stay." Poe whispers in her ear. He tugs at it lightly with his teeth. "Buy a little house."

"Maybe not-so-little," Rey says, leaning her head back against the tree, her back a perfect arch as she presses against him.

Poe has to take his arms away from where he's braced them so that Rey can shimmy his shirt the rest of the way up and off of him, and then Poe is bare-chested in the night air with Rey drawing shapes against his skin with the fingertips of one hand while her other cleverly tucks into his pants again, fattening his cock, and she's still fully clothed. And that just isn't fair, Poe thinks, sliding his hands beneath her leggings so that he can palm her ass.

"Yes," Rey hisses, and then pushes him back hard, kicks out of her boots and begins shoving her leggings down. " _Poe_."

"Anything you want, sweetheart." Poe starts to untie the many complicated knots that hold her drapey, desert-flower tunic onto her body; getting Rey naked is always a slow process of rite and ritual, and that only feeds into the rush that tells Poe that she's something sacred, to be worshipped.

"Hurry," she says, kicking her leggings free of one ankle, hands resting on his waist for a moment and then going to work pushing his pants and underwear down. "Force, I waited all day–"

Poe finally gets one last tug of fabric loose and then the whole tunic is fluttering down around Rey like water. She's bare underneath, no breast band or camisole, and she almost glows in the multicolored light of the aurora borealis and the flickering shadows of the wind-glossed Force tree's leaves.

She bites her lip, looks at him daringly. 

Poe shakes his head and pulls her against his chest again, cradling her head in one hand and wrapping the other arm around her narrow waist to keep her close. Her skin is going pebbled with goosebumps in the warm breeze.

"I love you, you know," he says softly. "For more than just all this."

"You like all this, too, though," Rey says, the slightest inflection turning it into a question.

Poe kisses her, and lets his hand caress her jaw, down to her shoulder and then following the curve of her breast. "Well, yeah. But it's 'cause I love _you_."

He lets her finally divest him of his pants and underwear, too, as his fingers trail down her stomach and in between her legs, stroking lightly enough that she's left wanting. Just a tease.

Rey sighs, and tips her forehead against his shoulder, curls one hand around his cock and guides it so that the head bumps her stomach, smearing precome across her skin.

Poe exhales, staring down at all the places they're touching, the way the softly colored light of the Yavin sky reflects iridescence off the shining wet on his fingers where he's stroking Rey, at the way his blush-purple cock is so much darker than the pale skin of her belly where they're bumping together.

Whining, Rey steps up closer to him, rising on her toes to rub against his fingertips more firmly. "Poe, come on, I've been _waiting_."

Poe tilts his chin up to kiss her. "What, just... against the tree? You'll get all scratched up."

"I don't care," Rey shrugs. "What, do you have a better idea?"

Poe glances down at the empty basket they've been toting all day. "Could spread the blanket out? I just don't want you to get hurt."

Rey steps back, giving Poe's cock a loose stroke and letting him go. She leans back against the trunk, crossing her arms and cocking her chin at him. "The blanket'll do."

Poe kisses the thin skin beneath one of her eyes, just above where her cheeks are dusted with freckles, and then spreads the blanket out over the long blue grass and fat tree-roots.

Rey watches him, points out where one corner is folded over until he fixes it. Poe's arms flex in the filtered light from overhead, and Rey stares at the cut of his hips, the wiry dark hair on his thighs. 

Poe smooths the blanket as much as he can, and kneels in the middle, looks up at Rey. "C'mere."

Rey doesn't need to be asked twice, bounding onto the blanket and wrapping her arms around Poe's neck. The breeze feels cooler in the shadows of the broad, spade-shaped leaves of the Force tree hanging huge above them, the branches so long and curled that it almost makes a cavern to hide them away, the leaves and tendrils hanging low and swaying lightly in the night air.

Rey shivers, her nipples peaking where they brush up against Poe's chest as he draws her in closer.

Poe runs his hands up her sides and around her back, up to curl around the nape of her neck, weaving his fingers into her hair and tugging so her head tips back. He draws his teeth down her throat, sucking a mark at the base of her neck. "Like this?" Poe asks, nuzzling at her collarbone. It would be easy enough. But he could turn them over just as easily.

"Mm," Rey sighs, relaxing into the feeling of Poe's hands and lips on her skin. Her eyelids are heavy, but she doesn't want to let them flutter closed: there's something important about the way the banded sky looks as it makes shapes through the leaves of the tree and the safety of the branches and roots all around them. She wants to remember everything about this place.

Poe shifts so that the root beneath his right leg isn't jutting into his shin so awkwardly, and Rey presses up more tightly to his chest. It feels natural to roll them back, to lay Rey out on the blanket and fit himself over her.

He catches the back of her precious head in one hand and lets her soft hair tangle through his fingers, cradling her head so that it doesn't land on any rocks or roots beneath the thin blanket. There's an entire galaxy inside her miraculous brain and Poe feels fierce with wanting to keep her safe, here with him.

Rey hooks a leg at his hip, her heel running lightly up the back of his thigh. She likes being close like this, face-to-face, the way she can tuck her nose against his shoulder when she's too flushed to meet his eyes.

Poe doesn't make her wait anymore, just takes a hand away from her breast long enough to guide himself in at the right angle.

"Ohhh," Rey whispers, turning her cheek into the blanket and staring at the draping limbs of the tree, the sky beyond. "Poe, you feel–incredible, so, so good, fuck." They don't have to be quiet, out here, far enough away from the house that she's not worried that Kes or BB-8, or the neighbors, will hear.

"Good," Poe murmurs back, and he's still kissing every part of her skin he can reach. "Want you to feel amazing. Want you to want to stay here with me."

Rey arches her back and goes still. "Poe, Force." She turns her face slowly, nose brushing his jaw, lips finding his. "You going to build me a house?"

Poe slides out, slow and teasing, until only the tip is left between her lips, a few shallow, teasing thrusts just _there_ and back again before he nuzzles her cheek. "Mm-hmm. Big house, room for lots of babies."

Rey shivers, wraps her other leg around his waist, her ankles crossed beneath his ass and giving her leverage to roll her hips up against his. "I want that, I _want_ that, Poe–" She didn't use to say the things she wanted out loud; there was no one to listen, and saying them into silence only made them feel less real, not more. Living with Poe has made it feel like strength to say what she wants.

Usually all she can do is whisper them in his ear behind thin walls in the Resistance Base, or gently push them through his mind like a song, but out here she can speak to her truth–be loud, and reckless, and make rash promises. Beg, and demand.

"I don't want to leave," Rey breathes, tucked into his neck. "I don't want to go back, and I know we have to, I know–we have so much to do, so much I want to do, for Luke, for the General, for _us_ , but all I want is–" this. Him.

"Tell me," Poe murmurs. He touches her cheek with a reverent hand, letting himself roll deep inside her again. He grasps a tree root above her head with his other hand for leverage and presses their foreheads together. "Tell me what you want, Rey. I'll give you anything."

"You," Rey pants. "I mean it, Poe, the house, I want to come back here, it's your _home_." She wants to share it, if he meant his offer of that. She also wants to kriffing come, squirming her arm down between them to rub at her clit. Poe is heavy, hot and thick inside her, scrambling the words on the tip of her tongue.

Poe makes a little noise and moves her hand out of the way so that he can get his fingers on her instead, knuckles pressed in a v against her clit and along the place where he's moving urgent, spreading her wider open just because he can.

Rey lets herself moan, loud and broken, and it's swallowed up by the breeze and the clamor of the Force tree's leaves shaking all around them like they're taking on Poe- and Rey's energy, everything they're spending on each other feeding the tree more life. Rey's empty hands scrabble along the ground where the blanket's rucked up behind her neck, grass in her hair, and she finds tree roots that fit into her hands like that's what they were made for, to anchor her for Poe.

The sky is dark, so many other stars and planets visible through the tree limbs that Rey can see them speckled behind her eyelids when she closes her eyes to groan. _Tell me what you want?_ she pleads, the thought like an electric current sizzling between them. Her proximity to the tree is turning even the smallest uses of the Force into moments when Rey can feel it swelling in her.

"Kriff," Poe grits between his teeth, and then he's pushing up onto his knees with Rey's hips bruise-tight in his hands so he can move faster, rougher, get even deeper. "I just want _you_. I want you to marry me."

Rey stares up at him. There's a strand of hair in her face, and her chest is heaving, and Poe is looking down at her fiercely. "Are you _proposing_ to me?" Rey asks, her voice catching, her fingers twisting in the roots of the tree Luke Skywalker gave his mother.

Poe sort of feels like maybe this isn't the most romantic way he could have done this–it isn't how he'd planned it, anyway–but at the same time, it feels _right_. There's something in the air, in the sky and the soil around them. It's right, now. "Yeah." He drags his thumb in a rough circle over her clit. "I am, yeah."

Rey laughs, her ribs expanding, her thighs clenching around his hips. "Has anyone told you that you have terrible timing, Commander?" 

"That isn't a no," Poe points out, biting his lip, grinning up at her. 

Rey's laughter goes soft, her lips pursed. "No, it's... Force, Poe."

Neither of them speaks for a long minute as the skin-sound of their thighs meeting joins with the rest of the chorus of Yavin at night, fitting in with the rustle of blue grass and spade-leaves and cheery woollamander yells and runyip chitters and whooping of whisper-birds. Everything is all melded into one under the Force tree's branches bleeding a buzzing gold kind of _peace_ but _energy_ over everything. Poe doesn't have much sensitivity to the Force, but he feels invincible.

The hum under her skin is getting louder, and Rey closes her eyes for a minute before making her mind up. Poe is heavier than she is, infinitely _solid_ , but she can still flip him easily, when she puts her mind to it, and then she's straddling his hips, her hair falling in his face. She kisses the surprise out of his mouth, and sits back on his cock to make them both moan.

She takes a long time to seat herself on it. Lets herself work for the stretch of him this way, a different press, a different kind of deep. Poe's eyes glitter under the colored sky, and she can feel each place on her body that his gaze rests like he's touched it with heat.

She's close before she remembers that she hasn't told him, and it comes out in a stream of words, "Poe, fuck, yes."

Poe reaches up to touch Rey's face, his thumb tracing her lip. "Is that like, a sex yes, or like a _yes_ yes?"

Rey laughs, ringing out loud enough that a flock of birds takes flight in the field outside of the Dameron compound, and all of her muscles squeeze Poe in ways that he wants to make happen again and again and again.

"Everything yes," she clarifies, and bends down to capture his mouth in a kiss.

"Well," Poe says, between kisses. "Can't blame a man for wanting clarification."

"Don't propose while you're kriffing fucking me next time, then," Rey mutters. Poe can feel the smile on her mouth anyway, and he wraps his arms around her to roll them over again. The blanket ends up shucked entirely out of the way, tangled around one of his ankles, but Rey's back lands against a pillow of grass and warm soil and tree roots that cradle them instead.

Rey's hair is a messy halo around her head, blue-green leaves woven through it like a tapestry. Poe's knee is in the dirt. They're going to be completely filthy by the time they're done. "I'll do it better next time," Poe promises.

Rey turns her head to nuzzle against his hand, sloppy kisses until he slips his thumb and index finger into her mouth so she can suck on them. "You better."

Her eyes are so dark, but Poe can see the aurora borealis reflected in them as liquid flecks. He kisses her cheek, and reaches down to curl a hand under her knee at his hip, press her leg up to give himself room to work into her deeper. "We could get married here, or we could go back to Ahch-To–or D'Qar, I bet we could find the exact–ah–place we met."

"I think all the places we first were near each other got blown up," Rey says, although she doesn't sound bothered by this. "But Maz's rebuilt. She could cater. We'd all get trashed."

"Not too trashed," Poe says, dragging his lips against her shoulder. "You think I'm gonna ruin our chance at a proper wedding night?"

Rey's fingers tangle through Poe's hair, a rough tug. "Will you make me come faster on our wedding night, at least?"

Poe groans. "I'm gonna make you come so many times," he swears, "that's supposed to help with the, uh–" and he goes still, staring down at her, cheeks flushed, before he laughs at himself. "I really am fucking this up all over the place tonight, aren't I? Maybe I should shut my big mouth and just get you off, huh?"

Rey lifts her head just enough to set her teeth against his lower lip and give it a tug. "I like your big mouth." She pauses. "I mean that in every way."

Poe's face still feels a little hot, but he laughs, adores her. "I can do that," he offers, "if you'd rather?" He moves backwards on his knees, and Rey rolls her eyes, tugs him back in with her heels at the back of his thighs and her arms twined around his neck. 

"Just finish what you started, Dameron."

"Yes, ma'am." And Poe gets a look in his eye that sends a sharp frisson through the Force, a shiver that he isn't joking and anxious and mouthy anymore, he's on a _mission_.

He’s already close; Rey can feel that in the Force too, a tremulous thing twined around his determination. It doesn’t matter. He’s going to get her off first. His fingers find her clit blindly, because he’s still staring at her face, and Rey bucks into the touch. The angle it provides for his cock is so good that she presses her fists to the ground to hold herself up, keep her hips lifted as he starts to speed up again. 

" _Please_ ," Rey babbles, and she would be embarrassed at how high and reedy and loud she is, the way her voice cracks, but there's no reason to be embarrassed around Poe. Not about this, not about anything. "Kriff, Poe, please, I want it."

"I know," Poe grunts, panting against her shoulder. "I know, Rey, Force, _sweetheart_." His fingers rub over the hood of her clit and Rey goes shock-cold with the surprise of her orgasm, the Force fizzing in her bones, the rush of the moment flooding back in hot and present. Poe is sobbing her name into her skin, and she can distantly feel her body pulling the orgasm out of him, simultaneous and overwhelming.

Something... happens, in the Force, all around them in the exhalations of the tree into the night air and below them in the roots sucking up water and nutrients from the soil and above them in the canopy of protective leaves and branches. It's a bubble, golden and blue and beautiful, peaceful and silent and a torrential torment all at once, pressing against Rey until it slips between the cells of her skin and floods her.

She has never felt more powerful.

"Hey," Poe says, infinitely tender. His hands are cupping her face. "Rey?"

She can see his Force signature, too, a brilliant streak of silver and orange neon and a feeling like breaking into hyperspace with a happy howl, but he has roots as deep as this tree, too, solid and sturdy. Trustworthy. He's _good_ , _Light_ to the core.

Poe's face creases with a slight anxiety, and his fingers tense on her jaw. "Rey," he says again, louder, "Love, what is it?"

She shakes her head, still gasping as she shudders around him where he's still inside, going soft slowly. "I'm fine. I'm wonderful."

"Your eyes went kinda funny," Poe says, softly. He leans down, kissing her for just a moment. "You'd tell me, if it was... a bad kind of Force thing, right?"

"It wasn't bad." Rey kisses him back. It's just a light touch. A nibble. "I'd tell you."

It's the only thing Poe's afraid of, these days. He pulls out carefully, holding Rey's thigh, and shifts onto his back beside her, throwing his arm across her stomach and staring up at the branches of the tree.

"It's so big now," he comments, looking up through the branches. "It used to be about as small as I was, since we were the same age. My dad panicked a few years ago because he thought it was dying; all the leaves shriveled up." He turns his head, looks over to Rey with sleepy eyes. "But it started growing again right around the time Beebee-Ate and Finn found you."

Rey smiles, small and secret, just for him and the Force. She can feel that, in the tree, but she likes hearing him tell it. "Imagine how big it'll be in a few years," she says.

“Don’t have to imagine,” Poe says. “We’ll be here to see it.” 

His certainty is warm through the Force, and Rey pulls it around her like a shawl. Poe traces the goosebumps on her sternum and sighs. “We should go in, if you’re ready?”

Rey nods. 

She hunts for their clothes as Poe shakes the blanket out, but before she can begin getting hers back on, he wraps the blanket around her shoulders, kisses her forehead. “Dad’ll be in bed by now, you should be safe.”

“Scandalous, Commander Dameron," Rey chides, but she just tucks the blanket tighter around herself like the cape that the General's friend, the other General who visits base sometimes, always wears. The wooden porch steps creak under their bare feet and Rey has the outrageous urge to burst out laughing, to hang off Poe's arms and laugh until she cries.

But she doesn't; doesn't want to wake up Kes, who's been so nice to let her stay, or alert BB-8 that anything unusual is going on. 

They're both biting their lips together to tamp down that wild, silly, grinning feeling as they race up the steps to Poe's old bedroom. BB-8 charges in a port in the corner, its optic lens shuttered as blue lights let it snooze.

Rey flops spreadeagle onto the bed, legs flailing out, taking up as much room as she can, the blanket spread around her. Poe takes a moment to admire her and then crawls onto the bed at her side. He’ll have to get up again in a moment for a wash cloth, and Rey will probably want a glass of water. For now, he’s going to bask in the glory of so much exposed skin.

Rey catches him staring and sticks out her tongue.

"Ah, the great hope of the galaxy," Poe mutters, and he kisses her shoulder. "Don't know why you bother with me."

"Because you're mine," Rey says. "And now that you've proposed, you'll never be rid of me."

Poe grins, teeth against her skin. "D'you promise?"

Rey looks up at the ceiling. If she closes her eyes she can still see the blue-green leaves of the tree above them, feel Poe’s warmth inside her. Somewhere high above, the sky is twinkling and bright. "Yes."

**Author's Note:**

> Find us on Tumblr @aimmyarrowshigh and @nichestars, respectively! IF YOU LIKED THIS, WRITE US SOME. The world needs more Happy Poe/Rey Not Being Tortured By First Order Assholes.
> 
> Also, we looked up "popcorn" on Wookieepedia and it's literally called bang-corn in the SW universe; we would not make up something that ridiculous just for our own funsies.


End file.
